LIBRARY OF CONGRESS. 



Cliap.. J„. Copyright No. 



UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. 



HISTORIC BUBBLES 



FREDERIC LEAKE, 



The earth has bubbles as the ivater has. 
And these are o/thef/t.—GA^Q^o. 

Mais les onvrages les plus courts 

Sont toujours les meilleurs.-\.K FONTAINE. 






ALBANY, N. Y.: 

RIGGS PRINTING & PUBLISHING CO. 

1896. 



^V^.,^^ 



THE LIBRARY 
OF CONGRESS 

WASHINGTOW 

■ 1 



Copyright, 1896 

BY 

RiGGS Printing and Publishing Company 






CONTENTS 



Duke of Berwick, 


PAGE 

7 


Captivity of Babylon - - - 


- 45 


The Second House of Burgundy, 


75 


Two Jaquelines, - - - . 


- "5 


Hoche, 


152 



An Interesting Ancestor of Queen Victoria, 185 
John Wiclif, - - - - - - 201 



PREFACE 



Once upon a time I was a member of that 
arch-erudite body, the Faculty of WilHams Col- 
lege, and I took my turn in putting forth lectures 
tending or pretending to edification. I was not 
to the manner born, and had indulged even 
to indigestion, in the reading of history. These 
ebullitions are what came of that intemperance. 

The manuscripts were lying harmless in a 
bureau drawer, under gynsecian strata, when, 
last summer, a near and rummaging relative, a 
printer, unearthed them, read them, and asked 
leave to publish them. I refused ; but after con- 
ventional hesitation, I— still vowing I would 
ne'er consent — consented. 

With this diagnosis, I abandon them to the 
printer and the pubHc. Those who read them 
will form opinions of them, and some who read 
them not, will do the same thing in accordance 
with a tempting canon of criticism. 

F. L. 

WiLLIAMSTOWN, MaSS,, 1896. 



The Duke of Berwick 



I 



TN the north-east corner of the map of Eng- 
^ land, or, if you are a Scotchman, in the south- 
east corner of the map of Scotland, you will find 
the town of Berwick. 

That town was held first to belong to Scot- 
land, and then to England. Then the lawyers 
tried their hand at it, and made out that it be- 
longed to neither — that a writ issued either in 
England or Scotland, would not run in Berwick- 
on-Tweed. So an act of Parliament was passed 
in the reign of George IL, to extend the author- 
ity of the British realm to that evasive munici- 
pality. 

The name is pronounced Berrick, It is a rule 
in England to spell proper names one way and 
pronounce them another: thus Edinburgh is 
Edinboro, Derby is Darby, Brougham is Broom, 
Cholmondeley is Chumly and so on. This rule 
is sometimes inconvenient. An American tour- 
ist wished to visit the home of Charlotte Bronte. 
He asked the way to Haworth. Ha-worih! 
Nobody had ever heard of such a place. No 
such place in that part of England. At last 



8 HISTORIC B UBBLES 

somebody guessed that this stray foreigner 
wanted to go to Hawth, Haworth is Hawth. 

But that act of Parliament did not decree 
that folks should say Berrick and not Berwick; 
and even if it had, it would not be of force in 
this country; so the reader may pronouce it just 
as he pleases. 

From that town was derived the ducal title 
of my subject. 

In Novem.ber, 1873, I sailed for England. 
Among my shipmates was Lord Alfred Churchill 
an uncle of the present duke of Marlborough, 
and a descendent of John Churchill duke of 
Marlborough the famous general of Queen 
Anne. Walking the deck one day with Lord 
Alfred, I asked him about his family — not about 
his wife and children — that would not have been 
good manners; but about the historic line from 
which he sprang. I asked how it was that he 
was a Churchill, when he was descended not 
from a son but from a daughter of the great 
duke. He explained that an act of parliament 
had authorised Charles Spencer, earl of Sunder- 
land, son-in-law of the duke, not only to take 
the title of duke of Marlborough, but to change 
his name from Spencer to Churchill. 

There can be no better evidence of the over- 
shadowing glory of the great captain than that 
the house of Sunderland should so nearly sup- 



THE D UKE OF BER WICK 9 

press the old, aristocratic name of Spencer, in 
favor of the new, the parvenu Churchill. The 
Spencers came in with the Conqueror, and we 
meet them often in history. We well remember 
the two Spencers, father and son, who were 
executed in the reign of Edward 11. on a charge 
of high-treason; and that bizarre historian 
A'Becket says that the sad tale of those Spencers 
led afterwards to the introduction of spencers 
without any tail at all. 

I asked his lordship what had become of the 
Berwick branch of the Churchills. He answered 
drily that he did not know — so drily in fact that 
I inferred he had forgotten there had ever been 
such a branch. 

In order to introduce that branch I must ask 
you to go back with me to the middle of the 
seventeenth century. 

Charles Stuart, Charles II. sits on the throne 
of England, or rather perambulates about it, 
for he is a great walker: he and his dogs are 
always in motion; and his favorite breed of those 
animals is still known as the King Charles 
spaniel. 

Charles was a witty and a disreputable mon- 
arch: one current view of him is that he never 
said a fooHsh thing and never did a wise one. 

Charles had married Catharine of Braganza 
a daughter of that John of Braganza who had 



lo HISTORIC B UBBLES 

rescued Portugal from the yoke of the Spanish 
Hapsburgs, and founded the present dynasty. 
Catharine bore no children, and the next heir 
to the crown, was James duke of York brother 
of Charles. The two brothers were unlike in 
everything but general worthlessness: Charles 
was an idler and a scoffer; James a busybody 
and a devoted — not exactly devout — Roman 
Catholic. Both were fond of women; but mark 
the difference! Charles gathered to him hand- 
somes ones only; and they were truly handsome, 
as their portraits still testify. James fell in love 
so perseveringly with homely ones, that Charles 
said in his ribald way, that it was the priests who 
imiposed those girls on James as a penance. 

Among the damsels who won James' heart, 
was Anne daughter of Sir Edward Hyde, after- 
wards Earl of Clarendon. Now Miss Anne 
Hyde though respectable, was certainly no 
match for the blood-royal, for the heir apparent; 
and James after having gained her affections, 
sought to jilt her. What led him to think bet- 
ter of it is not clear: stories differ: it is even 
said that her father himself opposed the mar- 
riage out of prudence and politics, just as Car- 
dinal Mazarin prevented Louis XIV. from 
marrying his niece Olympia with whom the 
young king was desperately in love. Another 
legend is that Sir Edward came and knelt be- 



THE DUKE OF BER WICK ii 

fore the king and pleaded the cause of his 
daughter; and Charles told James he must marry- 
that girl. At all events, he did marry her. 

Little homely Anne Hyde was now great 
duchess of York, wife of the heir apparent, pros- 
pective queen of England. Among her maids 
of honor was Arabella daughter of Sir Winston 
Churchill a country gentlemen of credit and re- 
nown. Arabella had a homely face — there is 
augury in that — but her form was symmetrical. 
She was a bold horseman — or horsewoman if 
you insist. James was equally equestrian, so he 
and Arabella were often companions. One 
day Miss Churchill had mounted the most 
unruly animal in the duke's stables. Her 
horse reared and kicked and plunged so vio- 
lently that in spite of her horsemanship, (not 
horsewomanship,) she was thrown to the ground. 
James sprang to her aid. He passed his arm 
around that shapely bodice and looked into that 
plain face as he raised her up; and his susceptible 
heart was transfixed once more. 

On the 21. August 1670, there was born James 
Fitzjames, James the son of James and of Ara- 
bella Churchill. It was a lusty scion, Churchill 
through and through; very little of the Stuart 
perceptible. Leaving the brat to kick and yell 
and thrive — but don't forget him — we will con- 
sider some other of his relatives — ^respectable 



1 2 HIS TORIC B UBBLES 

folks all, and moving- in the best society, or 
I should not venture to introduce them to my 
readers. 

Arabella had a brother named John who, you 
see, was uncle to the little Fitzjames. But for 
this unclehood and this brotherhood, we prob- 
ably would never have heard of John. There might 
have been no Blenheim, no Ramilies, no Oude- 
nard, no Malplaquet, in fine, no duke of Marl- 
borough. James seeing that his morganatic 
brother-in-law was resolved to be a soldier, sent 
him to France to serve under Turenne; and 
John did not waste his time. 

Another of the boy's relations was William of 
Orange who was his first cousin and married his 
half sister Mary daughter of James. William 
is the hero, not of this story which is authentic, 
but of that fascinating romance Macaulay's His- 
tory of England. William was endowed with 
all the talents and perhaps with one or two of 
the many virtues attributed to him in that 
romance. He was as licentious as his uncles 
Charles and James, and was still keeping his 
odalisques at the very hour when Macaulay pic- 
tures him to us, wringing his hands over his dy- 
ing wife. He was cruel and even blood-thirsty: 
the massacre of Glencoe has left a stain on his 
memory which no romance can wash out. As 
we shall see presently, he would have put to 



THE D UKE OF BER WICK 



n 



death this very boy, had he not been held back 
by a hand which the fate of battle had made 
stronger than his. He was the last able king 
of England; but he broke down the power of 
the crown by impoverishing it. (Blackstone, 
Book I. Chapter 8.) Hq squandered the 
crown lands not only upon the Dutch advent- 
urers who had followed him from Holland, the 
Bentincks, the Zulesteins, the Auverquerques, 
the Keppels who thus fattened and battened 
upon the English people, but upon more ques- 
tionable favorities, upon the partners of his pri- 
vate vices, to such an extent that at his death 
parliament took back what he had given to the 
women, but the men being politicians found 
means to keep their share. 

In 1685. Charles H. died. He was but 55. 
He had been temperate in eating and drinking 
and had taken plenty of exercise, and in the 
ordinary course of nature, was good for twenty 
years yet. But he had caught cold and had a 
touch of vertigo. The doctors came and bled 
him. It did him no good, because a bleeding 
never did anybody any good. The next day they 
came and bled him a second time, and that did 
him no good, because a second bleeding never 
did anybody any good. So they came the third 
day and bled him a third time and that settled 
him. A Roman Catholic priest was smuggled 



14 HISTORIC BUBBLES 

Up the back stairs; the scoffer was shrived and 
was gathered to his fathers — the Stuarts, the 
Tudors, the Plantagenets, the Bourbons, the 
Valois; and his brother James reigned in his 
stead. 

Two years after his accession, James conferred 
the title of Duke of Berwick on the boy Fitzjames 
who was now seventeen. It was a barren title 
no estates annexed; but it was his father's gift, 
and with filial piety he cleaved to it his whole 
life, in preference to other and better endowed 
patents of nobility which his sword won for him. 

He too must be a soldier: the Churchill half 
of him would have scorned any peaceful course 
of life; so his father sent him to France to study 
the art of war in the same school where his uncle 
John had graduated. When he was nineteen, 
western Europe being at peace, he got leave of his 
father to offer his services to the emperor who 
was fighting the Turks, and was sore pressed 
by those misbelievers. James gave him a letter 
to an Irishman in the imperial service, named 
Taft who had held the rank of colonel, and had 
just been made a general. Taft had influence 
enough with the commander-in-chief, the duke 
of Lorraine, to give to Berwick the regiment 
he had left. 

The Turks lay encamped on the spot where a 
hundred years before, they had won the first 



THE D UKE OF BER WICK 15 

battle of Mohacs, and what still added to their 
self-confidence, was that the duke of Lorraine, 
in obedience to the emperor's orders, had 
attacked their position and been repulsed; and 
now scorning to act longer on the defensive, 
they marched upon the Christians. A bloody 
struggle followed in which victory was wrested 
from the hand of the Moslem. Berwick in his 
memoirs says that the Imperialists lost only 
ten thousand men — only ten thousand menl 
How many Turks fell in that dreadful day, he 
does not report. Perhaps like a good Catholic 
he thought that misbeUevers, especially dead 
misbelievers were not worth the counting. He 
says next to nothing about his own share in the 
battle ; but from the fact that he was immediately 
promoted, it may be inferred that the boy did 
not belie the blood of Churchill in all that car- 
nage. 

He did not remain long in the Emperor's ser- 
vice. His father now needed the aid of every one 
of the few friends that were left him; and Ber- 
wick returned to England. We all know that 
James lost his crown by undertaking to reestab- 
Hsh the Roman CathoUc religion in England; 
but he was by no means the natural fool for think- 
ing of such a thing that Macaulay represents him 

to be. 

In the whole history of national religions there 



i6 HISTORIC B UBBLES 

is no other instance of such inconstancy as 
had been shown by the EngHsh in that and the 
preceding century. At the beck of Henry 
VIIL, they renounced the pope and all his 
works. But Henry told them that he himself 
was now pope in England, so they still cleaved 
to popery: they bowed the knee to a Cockney 
pope instead of to an Italian pope. In the 
reign of Henry's son Edward VL, they went 
over body and soul to protestantism, priests and 
all. Then under his sister Mary, Bloody Mary, 
they all hurried back to the Mass and the 
Breviary. I know there were some exceptions, 
John Rogers and all that, but they were too few 
to invalidate the rule. In the next reign, that 
of Elizabeth, they changed their creed the fourth 
time. The Venitian ambassador at the court 
of Elizabeth, wrote home that the English would 
turn Turks or Jews to save their persons or their 
pockets. Nor did this pliability of faith end 
there. James himself remembered the day when, 
at the preaching of a few saints in jack-boots 
and spurs, half of England stopped going decor- 
ously to church, and repeating devoutly the 
liturgy, and fell to singing psalms through the 
nose. Let me say in parenthesis, that it was 
then that a certain nasal drawl came to be con- 
sidered the mark of vital piety, and it was then 
that these northern States were colonised. -As 



THE D UKE OF BER WICK 1 7 

we Americans have remained more pions than 
the EngHsh, we have retained more of that 
peculiar accent. 

Cromwell died; jack-boots and spurs ceased 
to be evangelists; nasal psalmody went out of 
fashion; and the Church of England was restored. 
Was it strange that James should persuade him- 
self that he could make the English people turn 
one more somerset? But he was not the man 
to do it, and his friends told him so. Louis 
XIV. warned him to be careful. The archbishop 
of Rheims suggested that a mass might not be 
worth three kingdoms. In the meantime the 
pope, Innocent the eleventh, was working in 
a curious subterranean way against him. Louis 
had insulted Innocent and imprisoned his nuncio ; 
and the pope was ready to league himself even 
with protestants to put on the English throne 
a dynasty hostile to the French king. 

England had but recently escaped from under 
the iron heel of the saints ; and she dreaded their 
return to power as much as the pope's. Con- 
sequently the Church of England which James* 
grandfather (James I.) said was the only church 
for a gentleman, was once more the strongest 
ecclesiastical body in the land. If James had 
been a little tolerant and let the bishops alone 
he might at least have reestablished Roman 
Catholicism as the religion of the Court; but he 
2 



1 8 HISTORIC B UBBLES 

was a fanatic and must have the whole or noth- 
ing; and he got the latter. 

The English, split up Into different sects wdilch 
hated each other with theological hatred, lost 
confidence in themselves. A foreign prince and 
a foreign army were called in as in the days of 
James' worthless ancestor King John. William 
of Holland with an army of Dutchmen landed at 
Torbay the fifth of November 1688; and England 
once more suffered the humiliation of an in- 
vasion. It was at this juncture that Berwick 
arrived in England, and took command of the 
king's household troops which his uncle Marl- 
borough had abandoned. Nobody contributed 
more to the overthrow of James than John 
Churchill who owed him everything. He and 
his shrew of a wife Sarah had influence enough 
with Anne, James' youngest daughter, and with 
her husband George of Denmark, to lead them 
too to desert their father and to go over to Wil- 
liam and Mary. 

Anne was a stupid girl and made a stupid 
queen; but her stupidity was but a mild form of 
that lesion In comparison with that which afflicted 
her husband. We have King Charles' own 
testimony on that point. Supping one day with 
James, he said to him: — Brother James I have 
tried our nephew George drunk and I have 
tried him sober, and drunk or sober there is 



THE D UKE OF BER WICK 1 9 

nothing in him. George had a stolid way of 
exclaiming Est-il possible! When James was 
told that his daughter and son-in-law had aban- 
doned him: What, cried he, has Est-il possible 
gone too? 

James was now reminded of the day when they 
cut his father's head off,* and he thought it time 
to quit. He fled and William and Mary mounted 
the throne. They were not the next heirs : one 
little life stood between and one only — that 
of the infant son of James and of his second wife 
Mary Beatrice of Este. But though, as Mac- 
aulay himself admits, no birth was ever better 
attested, all England was made to believe that 
the child was spurious. Even Mary and Anne 
gave countenance to that infamous story. That 
child was afterwards known as the Pretender 
or James III. 

The revolution of 1688, which drove out James 
and put upon the throne William and Mary, was 
a long step forward in the history of English 
liberty; but the personal share in it of the 
daughters and sons-in-law of James, was not 

♦Note: Green throws light on the fall of James's 
father Charles I. He says it was Villiers, duke of Buck- 
ingham, "who was destined to drag down in his fatal 
career the throne of the Stuarts." His fatal career was 
posthumous : he had been assassinated twenty-one years 
previous _ 



20 HISTORIC BUBBLES 

commendable. King Lear's daughters were less 
unfilial than Mary and Anne. Goneril and 
Regan did not drive their old father out into 
the storm: it was his own high temper that did 
that: he was furious that they would not enter- 
tain his hundred knights. They, the daughters, 
wanted him to sit by the fireside and let the house- 
maid bring him his slippers. He insisted on 
traipsing through the house at the head of a 
hundred stalking fellows, tracking the mud over 
everything; and I leave it to any good housewife 
if the girls were not right. 

But Mary and Anne and William drove 
the poor old king from his throne, from his home 
and from his country, and he died in exile. 

Mary is Macaulay's heroine, yet to make a 
point he cannot help relating her untimely glee, 
running from room to room in the palace of 
Whitehall, delighted to find herself the mistress 
of so fine a house from which she had just ex- 
pelled her own father. 

James fled to France, and Berwick went with 
him. Among other devoted friends who left 
their country and joined their fortunes to those 
of the banished king, was an Irish gentleman 
named MacMahon. From him was descended 
Marie Edmee Patrice Maurice MacMahon 
whilom president of the Republic of France. 

A few years later Berwick accompanied his 



THE D UKE OF BER WICK 2 1 

father in his expedition to Ireland which had 
remained faithful to him. That expedition came 
to grief, as you know, at the battle of the Boyne, 
in which Berwick took part. In another action 
during that campaign, he had two horses killed 
under him, and was himself wounded. He says 
in his memoirs, that that was the only wound 
he ever received; but he did receive one be- 
sides, and we shall see by and by why he never 
mentions it. 

On his return to France, Berwick became a 
French subject, and entered the French army 
for the rest of his life. Under the last two kings, 
Charles and James, England had been the ally 
of France. Louis XIV. was their first cousin, 
all three being grand-children of Henry IV. Wil- 
liam's mother a sister of Charles and James, 
was equally of course cousin to Louis ; but there 
was nobody on earth that William hated as he 
did the French king. Nor was this hatred with- 
out a cause: Louis had invaded and desolated 
WiUiam's native country, Holland, chiefly be- 
cause a Dutch envoy who had not been brought 
up in refined society, had told a French envoy 
to go to — well, it is not polite to say where — 
and William succeeded in dragging England 
into a war with France. England had nothing 
to gain in that war, and gained nothing but 
defeat. 



22 HISTORIC BUBBLES 

William himself took the command. In per- 
son William III. was thin, pale, dyspeptic and 
unwholesome, which accounts for his bad tem- 
per. He was brave and obstinate, and no 
series of defeats could take the conceit out of 
him. A good statesman, he was a bad general: 
it has even been said of him that he lost more 
battles than any other commander in history. 
He was now opposed in the field by a genius of 
high order, Francois de Montmorenci, Duke of 
Luxembourg, Marshal of France. Luxem- 
bourg like Marlborough had learnt the art of 
war under Conde and Turenne and would have 
equalled those leaders, if he had had their bodily 
vigor ; but he was a ricketty hunchback. 

The first encounter at which Berwick was 
present, between those two valetudinary war- 
riors who ought both have been at home with 
their feet in warm water, was at Steinkerk where 
William came near scrambHng a victory by a 
stratagem. He had seized one of Luxembourg's 
spies and had forced him to write false intelli- 
gence to him. Luxembourg was deceived, and 
before he knew it the English were upon him; 
but so promptly did he throw his troops into 
order of battle that after an engagement which 
was surpassed in bloody obstinacy only by the 
one that followed, the victory remained to 
him. 



THE D UKE OF BER WICK ' 23 

The next year these two generals met at Lan- 
den or Neerwinden. The battle takes both 
names from two towns held by the English at the 
beginning of it. Landen, says Macaulay, was 
the most terrible battle of the seventeenth cen- 
tury. Berwick says he himself was chosen by 
Luxembourg to open the ball. At the head of 
four battalions he marched upon Neerwinden. 
He forced the English lines and drove them back 
into the town. But they rallied; Berwick's four 
battalions wxre broken up, and he was left 
almost alone. He tore the trappings off his uni- 
form, and by speaking English hoped to pass 
for an English officer till he could escape. But 
he was recognized, and gave up his sword to one 
of his Churchill uncles a brother of Marlborough. 

The awful carnage of this awful battle then 
centered around Neerwinden. The French 
were repulsed time and again. At last the 
household troops of King Louis were brought 
up to the attack. At their head was the king's 
nephew Philip duke of Chartres, afterwards duke 
of Orleans, afterv\^ards Regent of France. These 
soldiers had turned the tide at Steinkerk, and 
now once more they maintained their high repu- 
tation: The English were driven out. 

Macaulay says : — *'At Landen two poor, 
sickly beings were the soul of two great armies. 
It is probable that among the hundred and 



24 HISTORIC BUBBLES 

twenty thousand soldiers marshalled around 
Neerwinden, the two feebllst in body were the 
hunchback dwarf who urged forward the fiery 
onset of France, and the asthmatic skeleton who 
covered the slow retreat of England." 

Quite picturesque, that! but the truth is Wil- 
liam covered no retreat slow or fast: he covered 
nothing but his horse and to him he applied both 
spurs: it was the best he could do. 

Before he fled William had summoned his 
cousin Berwick before him. He told him he 
should send him to England to be tried for high- 
treason — He, a born Englishman in arms against 
his native country! This purpose was -quite 
worthy of the signer of the warrant for the 
massacre of Glencoe; but it was frustrated as 
follows : 

In the list of prisoners to be exchanged on 
both sides, Luxembourg observed that the name 
of Berwick was wanting. He learned for what 
fate he was reserved; he seized the duke of 
Ormond one of his own prisoners, and sent Wil- 
liam word that whatever measure was meted out 
to Berwick, should be measured again to Or- 
mond. Ormond was a favorite of William, and 
Berwick was exchanged for him.* 

*NoTE : Such is Berwick's own story. See his me- 
moirs. Macaulay's account of the matter is one of his 
boldest perversions, inasmuch as he cites Berwick at 



THE D UKE OF BER WICK 25 

In all this dreadful fighting the best soldier in 
Europe remains nearly inactive; not that he was 
sulky like our old friend Achilles; but his sover- 
eign feared and hated him, and was reluctant to 
employ him. It is true that William had sent 
Marlborough into Ireland to quell the Irish who 
were fighting the Saxon whenever there was 
Saxon there to fight, and when there was none, 
were fighting each other for the mere love of 
the sport. It was a task that had already 
baffied William and his Dutch generals, and 
which perhaps he hoped would baffle Marl- 
borough; but John Churchill was not born to 
be baffled. He knocked the heads together so 
smartly of Pat and Mike that those gentlemen 
made up their minds to be aisy; and he finished 
his errand so promptly that William himself felt 
bound to say that considering my lord Marl- 
borough had seen so little of war, he had done 
very well. 

In 1702, William was returning one day from 
a ride which he was taking for his dyspepsia, 
when his horse slipped and fell. The jolt shook 
out of him what little of life he had left; and 
Anne succeeded to the throne. Mary had died 
some years before. The day of Marlborough 

the head of the list of his authorities, See Macaulay, 
Lippincott edition, Vol. IV, pages 325, 326, 327. 



26 HISTORIC BUBBLES 

was now come. The theatre of his glory and 
chiefly that of Berwick's, was the war of the 
Spanish succession. 

Charles II. of Spain was the fifth of the Spanish 
Hapsburgs; he was also the fifth in descent from 
the great emperor Charles V. who was Charles I. 
of Spain. Charles 11. having no children, the 
next heir was the dauphin of France, son of 
Louis XIV. and of Maria Teresa the oldest sister 
of Charles; but in order to prevent the two crowns 
from falling upon one head, the dauphin assigned 
his right to his second son Philip. The other 
claimants were the archduke Charles afterwards 
Emperor, and a young prince of the house of 
Bavaria, both grand-children of younger sisters 
of Maria. The Bourbon claim was therefore 
the best, 

English historians lay great stress upon the 
fact that Louis and Maria at their marriage, form- 
ally renounced all claim to the crown of Spain 
both for themselves and their posterity; but those 
historians take care not to tell the whole story. 
The renunciation in question was not a compact 
with England or with the Empire: it was a com- 
pact with Spain alone ; and if Spain chose to 
waive it, it was nobody else's business. To avoid 
war however Louis and the Emperor agreed to 
withdraw their claim, and leave it to the little 
Bavarian; but just then that prince in an un- 



THE D UKE OF BER WICK 27 

timely manner died. Soon after his demise, the 
king of Spain died after liaving-, at the request 
of his nobles and by the advice of the pope, made 
a will bequeathing the crown to the legitimate 
heir, the house of Bourbon. It is noteworthy that 
the dying king was a Hapsburg, and had ex- 
pressed his preference for a Hapsburg successor; 
but the pope who was also moribund warned 
him not to die with the sin upon his conscience 
of having diverted the succession from the law- 
ful channel. Where did the renunciation stand 
in the opinion of these two potentates ? 

Philip of Bourbon now king of Spain entered 
Madrid accompanied by his wife and a singular 
personage whom Louis had sent with them. 
This was the Princess of Orsini of the house of 
La Tremoille in France, and widow of the duke 
of Bracciano, prince of Orsini in Italy. She 
ruled Philip, ruled his wife, ruled Spain, and was 
an indispensable agent there of Louis XIV. 

The Spaniards received Philip with open arms; 
but war was none the less declared by the Em- 
pire, England and Holland for the purpose of 
driving Philip out and putting the archduke in 
his place, which would have been nearly to re- 
establish the empire of Charles-the-Fifth. But 
the English though of nothing but of fighting 
the French, and of taking revenge for Steinkerk 
and Landen. 



28 HISTORIC BUBBLES 

Marlborough took command of the English 
and Dutch. The Emperor's troops were led by 
another great soldier, the Prince Eugene. I 
have already alluded to a pretty Italian girl, 
Olympia Mancini niece of Cardinal Mazarin, 
who won the heart of Louis XT V. in his youth, 
and was prevented by her uncle from marrying 
him. She got over that disappointment by which 
she missed being queen of France, and married 
the Count of vSoissons of the house of vSavoy, 
and gave birth at Paris to the Prince Eugene. 
Pie was educated for the Church; but he resolved 
to be a soldier and applied to the king for a com- 
mission. Louis told him to go back to his beads 
and his breviary; so he offered his services to 
the Emperor, and spent his life fighting alter- 
nately against the Turks and against his own 
countrymen. It was he who two years after the 
close of the war, commanded the imperial forces 
at Petervaradin, and struck the first irreparable 
blow to the Ottoman power. 

I cannot follow the brilliant career of those 
two captains. Brilliant as it was however, it 
came to nought, and chiefly by the soldiership 
which the duke of Berwick displayed in Spain 
itself. The English had landed an army there 
to which was added a contingent of Portuguese. 
Louis sent Berwick to oppose them with what 
few troops he could spare. It was now that 



THE D UKE OF BER WICK 29 

Berwick showed himself to be a past master 
of defensive warfare— a true Fabius. The Eng- 
lish, superior in numbers, could advance no- 
where against this adroit and sleepless adversary. 
He relates that on one occasion the enemy 
who had long tried to cross a river, posted 
themselves at last on a tongue of land formed 
by a sharp bend in the stream, so they could 
attempt the passage either at the right or the 
left. This reduced him to the dangerous neces- 
sity of dividing his forces so as to defend both 
fords. An accident of the ground saved him. 
The bank on his side, was an interrupted series 
of bluffs which half the time hid his men from the 
enemy. He kept transferring them from one 
ford to the other, making them form ranks and 
march slowly when visible, and run helter skelter 
when out of sight. The English who kept 
counting the same men twice, did not risk the 
crossing. 

While thus disputing the passage of the river, 
Berwick received an order from King Philip to 
return to Madrid in order to defend that capital. 
He replied that the true place to defend Madrid, 
was on the banks of that stream, and he refused 
to quit. Afterwards when the English had retired, 
he learnt that Philip and his queen had sent such 
a remonstrance to their grandfather that he had 
recalled him, and sent the Marshal de Tessin to 



30 THE D UKE OF BER WICK 

take his place. Tessin was a friend of Berwick, 
and he asked Philip and his wife how they could 
make up their minds to spare so able a soldier.- 
They were silent; there was a pause; at last the 
queen broke out with: — What can we do with a 
great, lank devil of an Englishman who will have 
his own way? 

Berwick reported himself at Versailles. Louis 
asked him why Philip had demanded his recall. 
Has he made any charges against me, inquired 
the duke. None whatever replied the king. 
Then said Berwick I have nothing to say. 

During his absence everything went wrong. 
Madrid was taken by the Imperialists, and the 
archduke crowned with the title of Charles III. 
and Spain enjoyed the advantage of two kings 
at a time: a Hapsburg at one end of the land, 
and a Bourbon at the other. 

In this confused state of things Louis sent 
Berwick back, having first conferred upon him 
the rank of Marshal of France so that Philip 
might treat him with more respect. Inferior 
in force he was obliged to resort to the same de- 
fensive tactics which had succeeded before. At 
the same time he implored Louis to send him 
more troops, pleading that any unforeseen acci- 
dent might be the loss of Spain. The king, 
hard pressed as he was by Marlborough and 
Eugene, contrived to send him a few more regi- 



THE D UKE OF BER WICK 3 1 

ments, and now for the first time he found him- 
self equal to the enemy. 

The decisive encounter took place at Almanza. 
This battle is unique among battles in that a 
Frenchman commanded the English, and an 
Englishman the French. The general of the 
EngHsh was the ex-count of Ruvigny a Hugue- 
not who had been driven from France by the 
revocation of the edict of Nantes. Fie had been 
created Earl of Galway in Ireland. He was a 
good soldier and was now fighting with bitter 
animosity against the king who had persecuted 
him. 

But to the battle. Berwick led his own right 
wing. He threw into some disorder the English 
left; then instead of following up his advantage 
in that direction, he wheeled suddenly to the left, 
fell upon the enemy's centre and crushed it. The 
victory was complete. An English account 
says that out of the thirty thousand men which 
Galway led into the field, seventeen thousand either 
fell or were taken prisoner; and that they lost 
all their artillery and baggage. 

Philip was restored to his throne. He now 
sought to make amends to the devil of an English- 
man wiio would have his own way, by creating 
him duke of Liria and Xerica with ample estates. 
Berwick refused them for himself, but accepted 
them for his son who thus became a Spanish 



32 HISTORIC BUBBLES 

grandee. Philip also offered, if Berwick would 
leave the service of his grandfather and enter his, 
to make him generalissimo of all Spain. He 
answered that Louis XIV. was his best friend, 
and that he would never serve any other mon- 
arch. 

Berwick returned to France and joined the 
army of the duke of Vendome who was another 
of his cousins. Vendome was grandson and 
Berwick great-grandson of Henry IV. They 
were unlike however: Berwick was without 
vices; Vendome w^as drunken and debauched. 
He was a good general nevertheless, and the year 
before had kept at bay Marlborough and Eugene 
during a whole campaign. Now he listened 
to a council of officers, and, Berwick dissent- 
ing, risked Oudenarde and was beaten. The 
next year Louis sent Berwick to the frontier of 
Savoy, to practise his old game of making one 
battalion appear two to the enemy; and to keep 
in check an army which threatened to invade 
France. 

The English landed another army in Spain 
under General Stanhope, and the Emperor one 
under Count Staremberg. Philip called loudly 
for Berwick, but Louis could not spare him: 
he was holding the wolf by the ears and it would 
not do to call him off. 

Macaulay says the fate of Spain was decided 



THE D UKE OF BER WICK 33 

at Almanza : that that was a disaster Marlborough 
and Eugene could hardly have repaired, much 
less Stanhope and Staremberg. To oppose those 
two captains, Louis sent Vendome. Vendome 
had contracted the habit of getting sober when- 
ever great issues were at stake, and he was in 
that abnormal state on the present occasion. 
By a dexterous movement he caught Stanhope 
napping at Brihuaga, and simply bagged him and 
his army. He then turned upon Staremberg. 
The encounter took place at Villa-Viciosa where 
the Imperialists after a stout resistance, withdrew 
leaving the victory to the French. This battle 
rid Philip of foreign enemies, and the crown sat 
steady on his head; and it still sits on the head 
of his descendant. 

Villa-Viciosa was Vendome's last fight: the 
sober fit proved fatal ; he died in Spain soon after 
the battle. Philip who was his cousin one de- 
gree further removed than Berwick, caused his 
remains to be laid in the royal sepulchre of the 
Escurial, and they repose there still. 

A change of ministry at this time in England, 
led to one of those acts that have purchased for 
her the name of Perfidious Albion. Legend 
says a glass of water did it. Sarah duchess of 
Marlborough was mistress of the household of 
Queen Anne. The two ladies were so affection- 
3 



34 HISTORIC B UBBLES 

ate that they gave each other pet names: A'nne 
was Mrs. Morley, Sarah was Mrs. Freeman, 
and the more affectionate they grew the more 
they quarrelled. One day during a skirmish, 
Mrs. Morley asked Mrs. Freeman to bring her 
a glass of water. She obeyed, but instead of pre- 
senting it with proper grace, she pushed the 
salver into the queen's face and upset the glass 
in her lap. The queen ordered her to quit her 
presence, and directly sent and demanded of 
her the gold key which was her emblem of 
ofifice. 

Now this is all true except perhaps the glass 
of water. It is true that a quarrel with the 
duchess did determine Anne to abandon Marl- 
borough and the Whigs and go over to Boling- 
broke and the Tories. Marlborough was re- 
called from his command, and the allies left 
to shift for themselves, with the aid however of 
the English and Dutch contingents which re- 
mained to them under the Duke of Albemarle 
who, in the absence of Eugene, was in chief com- 
mand. Albemarle was an Englishman that 
William had made out of a Dutchman named 
Yost Van Keppel. William himself had taught 
him the art of war and he was a bad general; 
Villars who commanded the French, was a good 
one, and the battle of Denain ended in accordance 
with those conditions. 



THE D UKE OF BER WICK 35 

It was the last of the war. The peace of 
Utrecht was signed to which England acceded, 
abandoning all she had fought for. 

The queen of Spain died, and as there was 
no fighting for Berwick to do, Louis sent him 
with a message of condolence for Philip. But 
peaceful embassies were not for the like of him: 
he never reached Madrid. An envoy from Philip 
stopped him on the way and informed him that 
Barcelona had revolted, and that it was for him 
to go there and restore order. He flew thither 
and laid siege to the town. Discovering that 
the citizens v\^ere receiving aid from Majorca he 
ordered the Spanish fleet to blockade the port, 
and having made a breach with his cannon he 
led his men to the assault. They had fought 
their way to the middle of the town when the 
garrison offered to surrender. The point then 
was to save the town from pillage and from those 
awful scenes which occur when a city is taken by 
storm. He directed the commander of the 
garrison not to let his surrender be known, and 
still to man the barricades. He then ordered 
a retreat, on the pretence that it was night-fall, 
and that they must prepare for a more vigorous 
attack on the morrow. The next morning Bar- 
celona was peacefully theirs. He says it was 
the first town taken by assault that ever escaped 
pillage, and in his pious way he attributes it to 



36 HISTORIC B UBBLES 

the grace of God, and says that hitman skill alone 
could not have compassed it. 

During the siege Philip to lose no time, had 
wooed and won another bride, Elizabeth Far- 
nese daughter of the duke of Parma; and Ber- 
wick received one day an order from the king to 
send the fleet to Genoa to fetch the new queen. 
He replied that the blockade of the port was 
essential to the capture of the place, and that not 
a ship could be spared. The great, lank devil 
of an Englishman had not improved, and Philip 
and Elizabeth had to wait. 

The name Farnese brings up another family 
which stands out in relief in the tableau of his- 
tory. You have all been to Rome. You re- 
member in the church of Saint Peter, near the 
chair in which Peter himself sat when he was 
pope, a sepulchral monument the finest in the 
church. It is that of Alexander Farnese, Paul 
III. Near the banks of the Tiber you remember 
that vast edifice the Palace Farnese, and on the 
other side of the river the Farnesina, or little Far- 
nese. You remember the Farnese gardens 
where they have dug out the foundations of the 
palace of the Caesars. All these demesnes, ex- 
cept the monument, belonged till recently to the 
kings of Naples descendants of Philip and Eliza- 
beth. 

It was the princess of Orsini herself who had 



THE D UKE OF BER WICK 3 7 

chosen a scion of that famous race for Phihp'g 
second wife; and the princess did not fail to re- 
pent of it. She had been deceived by one of 
the greatest scamps in Europe, the Cardinal 
Alberoni who had assured her that Elizabeth 
Farnese was a placid little maiden who would 
show her all the deference the late queen had 
shown. 

Kings, you know, don't get married like com- 
mon folks: they don't do their own courting 
nor even their own marrying: they send. A 
deputy woos the maiden by power of attorney. 
He puts the ring on her finger; the priest pro- 
nounces them man and wife; and then she is the 
spouse not of that man but of another one whom 
she has never seen. Etiquette then requires not 
that the bridegroom go forth to meet the bride, 
but that she come to him. But mark the often re- 
gi;Jt: — Henry VHI. married Anne of Cleves on 
the faith of a portrait by Holbein which flattered 
her. She was brought to England. When 
Henry came to lay eyes on her he swore they had 
sent him a big Flanders mare. George IV. 
while Regent married Caroline of Brunswick. 
He sent Harris Earl of Malmsbury to stand in 
his place at the altar, and to bring her to Eng- 
land. Malmsbury in his memoirs, says he fore- 
saw trouble from the beginning. The princess 
was good looking and good tempered, but her 



38 HISTORIC B UBBLES 

want of personal neatness was beyond belief. 
When he presented her to the Regent she 
kneeled. He raised her up and kissed her; and 
then turning to Malmsbury, whispered: Harris 
for God's sake get me some brandy! 

Barcelona taken, Berwick sent the fleet to 
Genoa, and Elizabeth was brought to Spain. 
As she approached Madrid, Philip and the 
Princess of Orsini went out together to meet her. 
She greeted her husband with marks of affection, 
but looked askance at his companion. Not long 
after, the Princess was suddenly siezed, thrown 
into a carriage, and conveyed to the French 
frontier and dismissed with the injunction never 
again to set foot in Spain. Louis XIV. was in- 
censed at this treatment of his faithful agent; 
but that Farnese girl was no subject of his, and 
she snapped her fingers at him. 

Philip and Elizabeth managed to live together; 
but whenever he desired to say his soul was his 
own, he took care to say it privately to his con- 
fessor. Alberoni was rewarded by being made 
prime minister of Spain. 

In 171 5 Louis XIV. died after the longest reign 
in history. He was king at five and died at 
seventy-seven. He outlived his oldest son and 
his oldest grandson and was succeeded by his 
great-grandson Louis XV. another boy of five. 

Louis had made a will leaving in effect the 



THE D UKE OF BER WICK 39 

regency during the minority, to the Duke du 
Maine his son by Madame de Montespan and 
the best beloved of his children; but Du Maine 
was immediately confronted by a spirit more 
potent than his own, in the person of Philip of 
Orleans, Louis' nephew, a prince whom Louis 
had feared more than he had loved. It was this 
Philip who had led the household troops at Neer- 
winden. He had married Du Maine's sister, 
but he pushed him aside and seized the regency 
as his birthright. Though his private morals 
were deplorable he governed France with vigor 
and ability till the majority of Louis XV. 

This change of rulers worked no prejudice to 
Berwick. The Regent Philip offered him the 
government of Guienne one of the finest of the 
provinces; and he accepted it. When the patent 
was made out, he was surprised to find it made 
to Du Maine under whom he was to act as lieu- 
tenant. He refused to do so. The Regent sent 
for him and explained to him how necessary 
he found it to flatter and conciliate his brother 
Du Maine. My Lord Duke, said Berwick, no- 
body knows better than I the difference between 
a genuine prince of the blood like you, and a 
spurious one Hke myself and Hke Du Maine; and 
I will not take civil service under one of the 
latter sort. Philip knew what an obstinate 
fellow he was dealing with, and he yielded. 



40 HISTORIC BUBBLES 

The patent >vas made out direct to Ber- 
wick. 

One would think that Philip V. owing his 
crown to his French relations, would have kept 
at peace with them; and he v/ould have done so 
but for that Farnese creature. He and the 
Regent fell into a dispute and then into a quarrel 
and then into hostile array; and Berwick took 
the field. In the Spanish army was his son the 
duke of Liria, and it might happen that father 
and son should meet face to face in battle. Ber- 
wick wrote to his son to sink all filial regard for 
him, and to serve his king as if he were a born 
Spaniard. The two Philips however became 
reconciled before much mischief was done. 

In 1716 Marlborough died.- The British idea 
seems to be that his career of victory did not 
end at that sad event. In the Tower of London 
some years ago, I was shown a cannon which 
the warden who spoke by the authority of the 
three kingdoms, declared was taken by Marl- 
borough at the battle of Dettingen. When I 
let fall a timid doubt, he repeated the statement 
with an indignant emphasis which silenced cavil. 
History does indeed record one other case of 
the sort. You remember at Rome, near the 
Cloaca Maxima, a spring where women were 
washing. It is there that Castor and Pollux 
watered their horses after the battle of Lake 



THE D UKE OF BER WICK 4 1 

Reglllus. Those two warriors had already been 
dead many years, and placed in the firmament 
where we still behold them. 

Eugene had retired from active life, and Ber- 
wick now shared with Villars the reputation of 
being the foremost of living generals. The war 
of the Polish succession came in the following 
manner: — Early in the eighteenth century Charles 
XII. of Sweden — that name at which Doctor 
Johnson said the world grew pale — burst into 
central Europe and turned everything upside 
down. He drove Augustus-the-strong from the 
throne of Poland, and put in his place Stanislas 
Leczinski; not that he thought Stanislas a better 
man than Augustus, it was merely his propensity 
to upset things. But he tried to upset one man 
who was too square-built for him; and that was 
Peter Romanoff, Peter-the-great. Peter beat 
him at Pultowa, and put things back in their 
places. Stanislas, driven from the throne 
upon which he had been so suddenly set, fled to 
Wissenbourg in Alsace, and was living there 
with his wife and daughter Maria on a small 
pension granted by the French court. They 
were poor but pious, and morning and evening 
they knelt and thanked God that although they 
no longer had a throne to sit upon, they still 
had a roof over their heads. 

One day there was a knock at the door; a 



42 HISTORIC B UBBLES 

stately official entered and bowing to the floor, 
gave Stanislas a letter. It was a portentous 
missive, a foot square and sealed with half a 
pound of wax. What was it? Were they 
troublesome at Wissenbourg? Was it a man- 
date to quit? Where should they go? Mother 
and daughter gathered at the side of the father 
as he opened it. It was a despatch from the duke 
of Bourbon prime minister of France, asking the 
hand of Maria for the young king. 

Louis XV. and Maria Leczinska were soon 
married; and a few years later Louis undertook 
to restore his father-in-law to the Polish throne. 
Villars and Berwick took command of the French 
armies; but the crown of Poland was not re- 
covered. The Emperor and Louis compromised 
the matter by the former giving to Stanislas the 
duchy of Lorraine a fief of the Empire; and that 
is the way Lorraine became French. 

Peace was not the normal state of things be- 
tween France and the Empire; and Villars and 
Berwick were not long permitted to be idle. In 
1734 as Berwick was reconnoitring the enemy's 
position at Philipsbourg, he was struck by a 
cannon ball and instantly killed. This was that 
second wound which he does not mention in 
his autobiography. His death was similar to 
that of Turenne who had fallen sixty years be- 
for at Salsbach. 



THE D UKE OF BER WICK 43 

Berwick was in his sixty-fifth year. Villars 
who was eighty-two, only hved long enough to 
learn the death of his brother in arms. Ber- 
wick said he, has always been lucky; and now he 
has died as a soldier would wish to die. 

Bolingbroke who was associated with Ber- 
wick in furthering the pretentions of his half 
brother James IIL, says that the duke 
of Berwick was the best great man he ever 
knew. 

He was twice married. Both of his wives were 
Irish: the first was the daughter of the earl of 
Clanricarde; the second the daughter of a gentle- 
man who had married one of the maids of honor 
of Queen Mary Beatrice. In his memoirs Ber- 
wick despatches his two wives in just ten lines, 
five to each. He does not even tell us their 
christian names. He was too busy fighting to 
think of the women. 

He had an own brother, the offspring like him- 
self, of James II. and Arabella Churchill, and bear- 
ing like him the surname of Fitzjames. This 
brother also rose to distinction: he took to the 
church and became bishop of Soissons. It was 
he who stood at the bedside of Louis XV. when 
the king was supposed to be dying, and refused 
him absolution and extreme unction till he 
would dismiss his favorite, Madame de Chateau- 
roux. The king yielded; the favorite was sent 



44 HISTORIC B UBBLES 

away, and he was absolved and anointed for Hea- 
ven; but 

The devil fell sick ; the devil a saint would be. 
The devil got well, the devil a saint was he. 

The king recovered and recalled Madame de 
Chateauroux. 



Some time after my return from Europe in 
1874, I read in the New York World a notice 
of the marriage in Paris of a Spanish nobleman 
with a Miss Stuart who the account said was a 
descendant of the duke of Berwick and of James 
II. It was added that the bride's family were 
once known as the Fitzjameses, but that they had 
subsequently taken the name of Stuart as more 
indicative of their royal extraction. 

So it seems the Berwick branch of the Church- 
ills was extant twenty years ago, and we hope is 
extant still, though its existence may not be 
known to Lord Alfred. 



The Captivity of Babylon 



PETRARCH who lived in the fourteenth 
century, gave the name of the Captivity 
of Babylon to the condition of the Church of 
Rome which was then in exile. No longer 
on the banks of the Tiber she held her seat, 
but on the banks of the Rhone; and Avig- 
non not Rome was the assumed mistress of 
the world. Petrarch did not live to see the 
end, but in one respect the appellation was a 
prophecy: the Captivity lasted seventy-two 
years; and the name is often applied to that 
period, especially by Roman Catholic historians. 

I shall endeavor to trace some of the causes ot 
that singular revolution, and some of its results. 

Towards the close of the thirteenth century, 
a poor hermit named Pietro da Morrone who 
had starved himself into the highest state of sanc- 
tity, was raised to the Apostolic throne with the 
title of Celestin V. One of the qualities which 
at that time recommmended a candidate for the 
papacy, was that he should be moribund, that 
his days should be numbered; and this explains 
the rapidity with which the popes succeeded one 
(45) 



46 HISTORIC BUBBLES 

another. During one year of that century, the 
year 1276, four successive pontififs reigned. 

Celestin V. knew nothing of the world nor of 
business ; and it was thought that the cares of his 
high office, would soon finish him. But his 
anchorite life had agreed with his constitution; his 
diet of parched peas and pure water had left him 
with a sound digestion ; and he showed no readi- 
ness to depart this life so that somebody else 
might be pope. It was necessary to hasten mat- 
ters. How this was done is uncertain; but it is 
said that one of his cardinals scared the poor old 
hermit off his throne by telling him of imaginary 
plots for his assassination. Celestin abdicated, 
and the scaring cardinal, Benedetto Gaetano 
usurped his seat as Boniface VIII,; and when 
this lofty prelate rode to the Lateran, mother of 
churches, to celebrate his accession, two kings, 
James of Sicily and Andrew of Hungary walked 
like grooms at his horse's head, and then waited 
on him at the table like common domestics. A 
pope in those days was a demi-god. 

The Church at that time interfered with all the 
aft'airs of life. If a man had to sustain the validity 
of his father's will or of his own marriage, he had 
to do it before ecclesiastical tribunals. If he died 
intestate the Church administered on his property. 
Even the calendar was ecclesiastical, and the year 
began not on the first of January or the first of 



THE CAPTIVITY OF BABYLON 47 

any other month, but at Easter; so that portions 
of March and April belonged now to the old 
year and now to the new. In line, canon, that 
is church law was the only law. 

In contrast to this, was the trifling physical 
force the pontiffs could exercise. The States 
of the Church were small in extent ; the battallions 
they could put in the field were few in number; 
and from time to time some impious prince insti- 
gated by the devil, would snap his fingers at this 
ghostly puissance; and then the world would 
be startled at the disparity between the real and 
the pretended power of Rome. But it was like 
a glimpse of the landscape a dark night by a 
flash of lightning: it hardly served as a land-mark; 
pope and prince would come to an understand- 
ing, and the spell remain unbroken. 

Boniface who was perhaps the haughtiest of 
the successors of Saint Peter, was soon made to 
feel this instability. Albert son of Rudolph of 
Hapsburg, was elected to succeed his father on 
the imperial throne. Boniface was not satisfied. 
What did he know about these Hapsburgs? They 
were new, parvenu, and one was enough. He 
put forth a bull commanding Albert on pain of 
excommunication, to deliver up the imperial 
crown to Adolfus of Nassau. 

A papal bull is a roll of parchment on which are 
inscribed in latin the behests of the pontiff, and 



48 HISTORIC B UBBLES 

to which is suspended by a ribbon, a globular 
leaden seal. It is this seal which gives it the 
name of bull, from the latin bulla, whence is also 
derived our word bowl, 

Albert of Hapsburg had a priest read to him 
the document, for he could not read it himself, 
and after pondering, resolved to do differently — 
that is differently from what the bull required. 
He tied the parchment to his horse's tail, and in 
that guise rode into the battle of Spires where he 
slew with his own right hand, his rival Adolfus 
of Nassau. 

Boniface after some bitter moments of reflec- 
tion, did the wisest thing possible. He rescinded 
the bull and received Albert back into the bosom 
of the church. Indeed the return of the prodigal 
son was so welcome that some years later Boni- 
face issued another bull giving to Albert the 
kingdom of France, without however showing 
him. how he was to get it. 

The power of the papacy had culminated in the 
hundred years between Innocent III. and Boni- 
face VIII., and was now on the decline. To this 
downward tendency Boniface shut his eyes; but 
we can assure ourselves of that tendency by con- 
sidering the different success of those two pon- 
tiffs Innocent at the beginning of the thirteenth 
century and Boniface at the end, in dealing with 
two able kings of France. 



THE CAPTIVITY OF BABYLON 49 

Philip II. called Philip Augustus, the rival of 
the English Richard-the-Hon hearted, was the 
cotemporary of Innocent III. Philip had mar- 
ried a Danish princess named Ingerburge. The 
chonicles say she was young and handsome; but 
Philip fell none the less in love with Agnes de 
Meranie the daughter of a Flemish nobleman. 

He applied to the pope for a divorce so that he 
might marry Agnes. Innocent refused. Philip 
then took the matter into his own hands and 
decreed his own divorce. Innocent excommuni- 
cated him and laid his kingdom under interdict. 

A dreadful word that of Interdict! No 
churches open, no bells rung, no mass, no con- 
fession, no marriages, no funerals, no religious 
rites whatever except baptism and extreme unc- 
tion — the ushering in and the ushering out of life. 

This deprivation settled down Hke a pall upon 
that ignorant and superstitious age, and the 
people would not endure it. They revolted and 
Philip succumbed: he sent away the beloved 
Agnes and took back the hated Ingerburge. 
Such was the fortune of Philip Augustus in 
measuring himself against the Church. We 
shall now see how his descendant another PhiHp, 
sped, a century later, in a contest with the same 
power. Philip IV. called Philip-the-fair, Pliilip- 
the-handsome, was grandson of Louis IX., Saint 
Louis, the Marcus Aurelius of the middle ages. 
4 . 



50 HISTORIC BUBBLES 

Philip had inherited all the talents and none of 
the virtues of his grandfather: he was true to 
no obligation and troubled with no scruples. 
Boniface had become aware of the dangerous 
character of the French king, and he sought to 
propitiate him by canonising his grandfather 
who thus escaped from purgatory and became a 
saint in Heaven; and no king ever deserved the 
promotion better. But Philip was not to be 
bought by so unsubstantial a favor: he was much 
less sentimental than rapacious and he seized the 
papal revenues. The clergy from time im- 
memorial had paid to the Holy See tithes and 
first fruits. Philip being in need of money, 
ordered that those stipends be paid to him, 
promising to account for them to Boniface. 
The pope rejected the arrangement with just 
indignation. High words followed, and he 
issued the bull Ckricos laicos^ forbidding the 
clergy in France and elsewhere to pay any taxes 
to the State, and commanding them to pour all 
their contributions directly into the Apostolic 
treasury. Philip resisted. Edward I. of Eng- 
land did the same; but Boniface did not take the 
same measures against Edward, that he did 
against Philip. Perhaps he feared the vigor and 
capacity of the English king, unconscious that 
the man he was defying was at least as able, and 
v/as the less scrupulous of the two. 



THE CA P TI VIT Y OF BA B YLON 5 1 

Philip not only forbade his clergy to pay tithes 
and other taxes to the pope, but he prohibited the 
export of money from the kingdom for any pur- 
pose whatsoever. Boniface retaliated by excom- 
municating Philip and laying France under in- 
terdict. At the same time he declared that the 
kings of the earth were subject to him in temporal 
as well as in spiritual affairs. None of his pre- 
decessors had gone so far: not Gregory VII., 
not Innocent III. had risked so dangerous a 
piece of arrogance; and it proved the ruin of 
Boniface. Philip was too sagacious not to see 
the advantage this false step gave him. His king- 
dom under the ban of the Church, himself ex- 
communicate, he resolved to make common 
cause with that people who, in a more benighted 
age, had fallen away from his ancestor. He 
convoked the States-General ; and this is the 
first time that famous assembly was called to- 
gether. 

The States-General were the general estates, 
that is all the estates of the nation. They con- 
sisted of four elements: the crown, the nobility, 
the clergy and the common people. It is cus- 
tomary however to name only the last three. 
To Philip is also due the reorganisation of the 
French parliaments into the form they retained 
down to the revolution. The parliaments were 
at first the occasional conferences of the sovereign 



52 



HISTORIC BUBBLES 



with his nobles ; then they grew into some degree 
of permanence, and combined judicial functions 
with political. When Philip introduced the 
States-General, he deprived the parliaments of 
their legislative functions, and constituted them 
courts of law civil and criminal. To them howv 
ever, and especially to the parliament of Paris, 
was left the prerogative of registering the royal 
edicts. This registry at first was solely to pub- 
lish them ; but it grew into a usage indispensable 
to their validity, and thus became a check upon 
the executive; so that the monarchy of the old 
regime was not quite an absolute one. 

These first States-General met in the Church 
of Notre Dame; and the third estate, that is the 
common people, filled nearly half the building. 
The towns only were represented: they had be- 
come too wealthly to be longer overlooked. The 
country people came in at a later day. 

Philip laid before this assembly two documents: 
one that the pope had discharged at him; the other 
a copy of the one he had flung back at the pope. 
They are so short and spirited that I venture to 
insert them: ''Boniface, bishop, servant of the 
servants of God, to Philip king of the Franks. 
Fear God and keep his commandments. Know 
that thou art subject to us as well in the temporal 
as in the spiritual; that the collation of benefices 
and prebends belongs not to thee; that if thou 



THE CA P TI VITY OP BAB YLON 5 3 

guardest the vacant benefices, it is to reserve the 
fruits for the successors ; that if thou conferrest 
them upon any body, we declare the collation 
void; and we revoke it if executed, pronouncing 
all those who think otherwise heretics." 

To him the Kins: :— "Philip by the grace of 
God, king of the French, to Boniface who calls 
himself Pope, little or no salutation. May thy 
great fatuity know that we are subject to nobody 
for the temporal; that the collation of churches 
and prebends belongs to us by our royal right; 
that the fruits thereof are ours ; that the collations 
made by us are valid ; that we will maintain their 
possessors with all our power; and that we pro- 
nounce those who think otherwise fools and mad- 
men." 

It is just to say that the authenticity of the mis- 
sive of Boniface, is disputed, though Hallam con- 
siders it genuine. It set forth nothing more than 
the pope had already avowed. At all events it 
put the case clearly before the assembly. A 
committee of the Third Estate, after much 
pondering, came and knelt before the throne in 
the middle of the church, and rendered the follow- 
ing verdict in which you will observe they had 
caught the tone of their master: — "It is an 
abomination that Boniface Hke the blackguard 
that he is should interpret so ill the words of 
Scripture: what thou shall bind on earth, shall be 



54 HISTORIC BUBBLES 

bound in Heaven; as if it meant that if he put 
a man in prison in this world, God would put him 
in prison in the next." Philip had this profound 
state paper turned into latin, and sent to the 
pope; and this document as well as Philip's mis- 
sive, is still in the archives of the Vatican. 

The clergy alone hesitated to stand by the 
king. They asked time to deliberate. Philip 
would allow them not an hour. You are French- 
men, cried he; from whom do you hold your 
benefices, from me your king, or from the Nea- 
politan Benedetto. They answered: from the 
king. They then begged leave to send a depu- 
tation to Rome to explain matters; and Philip 
refused. As for the exconmiunication and in- 
terdict, the king ordered them burnt by the com- 
mon hangman; and woe to the priest who dared 
shut his church, or tie up his bell-rope, or stop 
marrying or confessing or saying mass! The 
days of Philip-the-handsome were not the days 
of Philip-the-august. 

This triumph at home might well have satisfied 
Philip; but he still followed up Boniface in his 
own domain with pitiless energy. He accused 
him not only of having defrauded C^lestin of his 
throne, but of having poisoned him, and what 
was still worse, of heresy; and he sent orders to 
his agent in Italy, William of Nogaret, to seize 
his sacred person. 



THE CAPTIVITY OF BABYLON 55 

Nogaret in conjunction with Sciarra Colonna 
the chief of the GhibbeHne faction, gathered to- 
gether a few soldiers and surprised Boniface at 
his residence at Agnani. The pontiff supposed 
they intended to kill him. He put the dalmatica 
on his shoulders and the crown on his head, and 
sat like Papirius awaiting the blow. Colonna 
cried out to him to abdicate, as he had driven 
Celestin to abdicate. Betrayed like Jesus Christ, 
replied the old man, I will die his vicar!* 

But it was not their purpose to put him to 
death : no such merciful end was to be his. They 
held him three days a prisoner, treating him with 
a mockery of respect; and then the populace of 
Agnani, perceiving that the Ghibbelines were but 
a handful, rose and delivered him from his cap- 
tors. But the unexampled outrage had over- 
thrown his reason, and he died a maniac. The 
terrible Philip had hounded his enemy into his 
grave; but even there he did not leave him in 
peace, as we shall see. 

The bishop of Ostia was chosen pope with the 
name of Benedict XI. Philip demanded that the 
bull of excommunication be annulled, and him- 
self restored to full communion with the Church. 
Benedict complied; and thus was completed this 

* One of the largest pictures in the museum in Central 
Park, New York, representsor rather misrepresents this 
scene. 



5 6 HISTORIC B UBBLES 

first triumph of the temporal over the spiritual. 
Philip still claimed to be a true son of the Church; 
but he had shaken off her authority and he now 
proceeded to put his foot on her neck. It is 
to this degenerate grandson of a sainted king, 
that the Church of Rome owes that day of 
humiliation which forms the title of this 
paper. 

Benedict XI. was as moribund as usage re- 
quired; and in less than a year he laid down his 
pontificate and his life together. There now 
dawned upon Philip a scheme no less bold and 
sacriligious than that of owning and possessing 
both pope and papacy. He interfered to pre- 
vent an election till his own man could come to 
the fore; and for more than a year the Church 
was without a head. Then having by bribery 
and intimidation, obtained control of the sacred 
college, he made them choose Bertrand de Goth, 
bishop of Bordeaux, who took the name of Clem- 
ent V. Popes, you observe, change their names 
when they put on the tiara. This custom though 
ancient has not always existed: Saint Peter for 
example did not change his.* 



*The papal crown was not originally a tiara: it was 
single like any other crown. Boniface VIII. added the 
second crown. It is not known who added the third : it 
has been attributed to John XXII., to Urban V., and to 
Benedict XIII. 



THE CAPTIVITY OF BABYLON 57 

There was a secret bargain between Clement 
and Philip by which the former was to pay the 
price of his elevation. There is discussion 
whether it related to the removal of the Holy See 
or to the destruction of the Templars. As Philip 
needed the pope's aid in both these enormities 
which have cast such a lurid glory or glare on his 
reign, perhaps he bargained for both. 

Clement V. after having been crowned at 
Lyons, established his seat at Avignon on the 
left bank of the Rhone, and thus began the Cap- 
tivity. As it was followed by the Great Schism 
or Schism of the West, more than a century 
was to pass before the Church, always called 
Catholic, Apostolic and Roitian, was to be 
wholly reinstated in the Eternal City. 

Philip's old enemy had died demented, and in 
that collapse of intellect, the last rites of the 
Church either had not been administered or had 
proved fruitless. He had gone where Hamlet's 
father went, unhouseled unaneled, till his sins 
could be burned and purged away; and a smart 
anathema in due form from that Church which 
rules the dead and the living, might send him 
prone to the pit. Boniface had canonised Philip's 
grandfather, and that soul in purgatory had thus 
become a saint in Heaven; and now Philip was 
invoking a rescript of different import, to des- 
patch his grandfather's benefactor in the other 



5 8 HISTORIC B UBBLES 

direction. Such are the possible vicissitudes of 
another Hfe. 

PhiHp instituted regular proceedings against 
the dead pope, accusing him of every manner of 
impiety and wickedness, and Clement was forced 
to give ear to it, but though Philip's creature, 
he remembered the throne he sat upon, and was 
loath to dishonor it by blasting the memory of 
one of his predecessors; so he gained time: he 
heard testimony and took counsel; and then he 
heard more testimony and took more counsel. 
He whispered to Philip that if Boniface was the 
unhallowed wretch they supposed, he was already 
damned, and they were losing their time; and 
Philip finally let the matter drop. 

It were well for the memory of these two 
potentates if the attempt to dislodge Boniface 
from purgatory, were the greatest wrong they 
undertook. We now come to one of the foulest 
crimes in history: one in which the king was 
principal and the pope accessory. 

In Paris, but in a quarter no longer fashionable 
and which therefore you have not visited, is a 
congeries of shops where everything is sold by the 
penny worth. It is called the Temple from the 
building that once stood there. In the last 
century it served as a prison. Louis XVI. was 
kept there before his execution. In London 
there is a Temple church ; and we hear of lawyers 



THE CAPTIVITY OF BABYLON 59 

of the middle and inner temple. All these sites 
take their name from having been occupied by 
the commanderies or convents of the Knights- 
Templar an order of fighting monks founded in 
the twelfth century at Jerusalem, to guard the 
Holy Sepulchre. As monks they made vows of 
chastity and poverty; as soldiers, never to decHne 
combat at whatever odds. But as years rolled 
on they forgot one of their vows: they became 
rich and riches made them haughty without how- 
ever letting down at all their soldierly discipline 
and valour. They were respected and feared 
throughout Europe. The head of the order 
called the Grand-master was, according to Vol- 
taire, equal in dignity to a king. Their chief 
commandery was the one in Paris on the spot 
where needles are now sold by the paper, and 
thread by the skein; and it formed a kind of im- 
perium in imperio little to the taste of Philip IV. 
But a still graver fault was their wealth. Philip 
had begun the quarrel with Boniface by pocket- 
ing his tithes, and he sought an issue of the same 
character with the knights. But in order to get 
their money it was necessary to destroy them, or 
at least to destroy their organisation: they were 
the best soldiers in France; and desperately would 
they defend their persons and their pockets if 
the chance were afforded them. So Philip used 
craft, the only weapon he wielded better than 



6o HISTORIC B UBBLES 

they. He invited the Grand-master, Jacques 
'Molay, to be god-father to one of his children, 
and treated him as an equal. Never did the 
standing of the order seem higher. 

Suddenly at the dead of night, a band of Philip's 
ruffians in numbers to defy resistance, burst into 
the Temple, captured the knights and threw them 
into prison; and Clement issued a bull abolishing 
the order. But he was not allowed to stop there: 
Phihp obliged him to appoint an ecclesiastical 
commission to try the Templars. He accused 
them of spitting upon the Cross, which was 
blasphemy, and of a still darker crime, one so 
dark that he could name it only in a whisper, 
namely baphometry. And what, you ask, is 
baphometry? The word had a dreadful sound. 
The people were horror-striken when told that 
the knights were guiky of baphometry, and cried 
out away with them! Philip when asked to ex- 
plain, crossed himself and said that baphometry 
was the worship of graven images, of horrid idols 
sculptured by the devil's own hand; and he pro- 
duced those idols in evidence; and those idols are 
still to be seen in European museums. Whether 
the devil was really the artist has not been ascer- 
tained; the idols themselves are hidous enough 
to justify the worst; but to the mere lay under- 
standing they seem to be nothing more than odd 
and ugly bits of bric-a-brac which the knights 



THE CA P Tl VITY OF BA B YLON 6 1 

may have kept as curiosities. They denied hav- 
ing committed either blasphemy or baphometry, 
and were put to torture. Some of them suffered 
in obdurate silence; others among whom was the 
Grand Master himself, to win a respite from 
torment, confessed having worshipped bric-a- 
brac. But a short relief brought back their forti- 
tude: they retracted their confession and defied 
the tyrant. But it was all the same whether they 
confessed or denied: the putting in of the idols 
themselves as testimony was conclusive and the 
knights were condemned. 

The Church of Rome has always professed 
great horror of shedding human blood; so the 
Templars were sentenced not to the block and 
the axe, but to the stake, and fifty-nine of them 
were burned alive near the gate of Saint Antoine: 
the rest were banished. 

It is said that as the flames gathered around 
the Grand Master he summoned the pope to meet 
him at the bar of God in forty days, and the king 
in one year. They both came to time. 

There is a mystery about the death of Philip. 
Some say his horse ran away with him hunting, 
and crushed him against a tree ; others that when 
the year had rolled round, the spirit of Jacques 
Molay beckoned to him, and he came. 

In point of talents, Philip-the-fair was one of 
the greatest of monarchs: the reconstruction of 



62 HISTORIC BUBBLES 

the parliaments, the States- General, the removal 
of the Holy See, the destruction of the Temp- 
lars, were the work, good or bad, of no common 
head or hand. 

Edward 11. of England married Philip^s daugh- 
ter, and Philip's ability and rapacity seemed to 
descend less to his three sons who succeeded 
him one after the other on the throne of France, 
than to his English grandson Edward III. 

Boniface in his last ravings, had cursed Philip 
and his progeny; and the sceptre soon departed 
from them. But Boniface being crazy, had failed 
to put the malediction in due canonical form; and 
Time took advantage of the irregularity to re- 
verse it as follows: — All three of Philip's sons 
left daughters only. The male line of Philip 
having thus run out, the Salic law came in play, 
and gave the crown to the son of Philip's brother 
Charles of Valois. That son was Philip VI. 
But Philip-the-fair had married Jane queen of 
Navarre; and their eldest son Louis X. inherited 
both the crown of France and that of Navarre. 
After the death of Louis's posthumous son who 
lived and reigned just five days, and won a niche 
in history as John the first, Navarre not being 
subject to the Salic law, fell to Louis's daughter 
Jane who married the Count of Evreux. From 
that marriage was descended Jane d'Albret queen 
of Navarre who married a riotous scamp, 



THE CAPTIVITY OF BABYLON 63 

Antony of Bourbon, descended in direct male 
line from the youngest son of Saint Louis. The 
son of Antony and Jane was Henry of Navarre, 
and while he was still young, the House of Valois 
having been extinguished by the assassination of 
Henry HI., Henry of Navarre, Henry IV. be- 
came king of France. Thus did Time lay the 
curse of Boniface; but it took two centuries and 
a half to accomplish it. 

If you will pardon further digression, I will say 
a word about those names Bourbon and Valois 
which you meet so often in history:— In spite ot 
our notions about womens' rights, we common 
folks are reconciled to see the wife take the name 
of the husband, even when we suspect that it is 
not he who is master of the house. Royalty has 
sometimes departed from this wholesome rule : — 
Robert of Clermont the youngest son of Louis 
IX, Saint Louis, married the heiress of the house 
of Bourbon. Instead of calling his wife Madame 
de Clermont, he called himself Monsieur de 
Bourbon; and they were the progenitors of the 
family which came to the throne in the person of 
Henry IV. Henry's right to the crown of France, 
was through his father the riotous Antony, and 
to the crown of Navarre, through his mother Jane 
who was not riotous but pious. 

Another way in which surnames have been 
acquired to the blood royal, is by the escheating 



64 HISTORIC B UBBLES 

of male fiefs to the crown by the extinction of 
male heirs. Thus the estates of Valois fell to the 
crown, and were bestowed by Philip III. on his 
second son Charles brother of Philip-the-fair. 
This Charles was the father of Philip VI. first king 
of the house of Valois. 

Strictly speaking these poor kings had no 
family names at all — that is none in the sense that 
Smith and Brown are family names; and when 
Louis XVI. was arraigned before those cut- 
throats of the Convention, and called to answer 
to the name of Louis Capet, he refused, saying 
that his name was Louis of France. And in the 
archives of the Convention, is still to be found 
the inscription of a sum of francs expended to 
bury the Widow Capet. Widow Capet was 
Marie Antoinette, Mary of Lorraine, the descend- 
ant of Rudolph of Hapsburg, the daughter of a 
line of emperors, the wife of Louis of Bourbon, 
the queen of France. Widow Capet!* 

To return to the Captivity. On the death of 
Clement V. the cardinals made an effort to rescue 
the pontificate from French domination, and for 
two years there was no pope; but the French 
party prevailed, and the bishop of Frejus was 



* Capet was a nickname given to Hugh the founder of 
the dynasty, and was not borne by any of his descend- 
ants, excepting that the line is called the capetien. The 
meaning of Capet is uncertain. 



THE CAPTIVITY OF BABYLON 65 

chosen who took the name of John XXII. He 
immediately confirmed the French ascendancy 
by appointing six new French cardinals. It was 
during his reign that began the quarrel between 
the Holy See and the Visconti a powerful Lom- 
bard family from which were descended the later 
Valois kings, and from which they derived their 
fatal claim to the Milanese. John XXII. not 
only excommunicated Matteo Visconti the head 
of the family, but he added an edict advertising 
him, his wife and children for sale as slaves. 
There were no bids, because the Visconti were 
pugnacious and would not have made good 
household servants. His son Marco beat the 
pope's army at Vavrio on the Adda, and drove 
him back to France. But he came not boot- 
less home like Bolingbroke. He had plundered 
Italy from end to end. Though he did not suc- 
ceed in turning the Visconti into cash, tlicre were 
found in his coffers after his death, twenty-five 
millions of flurins in gold, in jewels and in 
plate. 

The next pope was Jacques Fournier, Bene- 
dict XII. and the next, Pierre Roger, archbishop 
of Rouen, called Clement VI. The Floly See 
had now been thirty years without a home of 
its own. It had resided as tenant at Avignon, 
and paid rent to the Angevine Kings of Naples^ 
called Angevine from their founder Charles of 
5 



66 HISTORIC B UBBLES 

Anjou brother of Saint Louis. The Angevines 
were a disreputable set, and Queen Jane the 
heiress at that period, was not the best of them. 
Clement VI. bought Avignon of Jane for eighty 
thousand florins in gold which Voltaire sa^'s 
he never paid. He made it up to her however, 
by a transaction in his own line, to the under- 
standing of which we must look a little into Jane's 
qualities and conduct. She was married four 
times, and neither time did she make a good 
wife. Her first husband Andrew of Hungary, 
she strangled; her second, Louis of Tarento, 
she poisoned; her third, James of Aragon, per- 
ished nobody knows how; her fourth, Otho of 
Brunswick, prudently kept away from her. At 
last, her cousin Charles of Durazzo dethroned 
her, and served her as she had served her first 
husband — that is choked her, and that was the 
end of Jane. Before this last culmination, the 
pope had pardoned her sins. They were as 
scarlet, and he made them white like snow; and 
when you reflect that the catalogue embraced the 
assassination of at least two husbands, you will 
admit that according to any reasonable tariff, the 
pontiff did not remain her debtor. 

It was during the reign of Clement VI. that the 
citizens of Rome, sick of misrule, revolted and 
created Nicholas Rienzi tribune of the people, 
and thus conjured up a ghost of the ancient 



THE CAPTIVITY OF BABYLON 67 

republic. At Rome you are still shown the house 
of Rienzi. 

Like the rest, Clement played with his thunder* 
bolts. He excommunicated Waldemar king 
of Denmark for having made a pilgrimage to 
the Holy Land without his permission, which 
shows how hazardous it was in those days, to be 
pious on mere impulse and without due license 
from the Church. 

Next came Innocent VL and then Urban V. 
who was a Marseilles abbot. Urban undertook 
to be a great pope, but the Captivity was no time 
for great popes. Urban's spiritual artillery 
seemed to have the same disagreeable property 
of recoil as that of our old friend Boniface VHL 

Petrarch then lived, and though he was a 
citizen of Avignon, he prayed night and morn- 
ing for the rebuilding of the Roman pontificate. 
Listening to him. Urban went to Italy to recover 
if possible the patrimony of Saint Peter, or, if 
you insist, that of the Countess Matilda. He was, 
confronted by that chronic enemy of the papacy, 
the Visconti. At that time the head of that house 
was one Bernabo who was if anything a little 
less bland in his way than his predecessors. 
After many high words, Urban lost his temper 
and let fly at Bernabo a major excommunication 
cursing him in eating and drinking and sleeping 
and in all the functions of life, and redoubling 



68 HIS TORIC B UBBLES 

the anathema upon him wherever he might 
fetch up in the hfe to come. Bernabo seized 
the legate who brought the bull, and made him 
eat it — parchment, ribbon, leaden seal and all. 
What sauce was allowed him with this strange 
victual, and how he felt after supper, have not 
been handed down to us. Not content with that, 
the impious ruffian sent Urban word that it was 
he, Bernabo, who was pope in Italy, and emperor 
to boot; and that the Almighty himself dared do 
nothing there without his consent. 

On Urban's return to Avignon, a fresh humilia- 
tion awaited him. Peter-the-cruel king of Cas- 
tile had an illegitimate brother, Henry of Tras- 
tamara who undertook to dethrone him. Henry 
obtained the aid of the famous French knight, 
Bertrand du Guesclin, and also of a band of 
mercenary soldiers called Free Companions who 
were not always distinguishable from frec-boot- 
ers. In their march toward Spain, they en- 
camped one night on the bank of the Rhone 
opposite Avignon, and sent to the Holy Father 
praying that he would pardon their sins, bless 
their enterprise and give them some money. Ur- 
ban granted them absolution and benediction; 
but he told them he had no money for them, 
and bid them be gone. They demanded forty 
tliousand crowns in gold as the price of their 
departure. Urban launched at them a thunder- 



THE CAPTIVITY OF BABYLON 69 

bolt as pregnant with disaster as the one he had 
discharged at Bernabo. Du GuescHn himself 
then sought an interview with his Holiness, and 
told him that he had no control over those 
marauders except on the field of battle, and that 
they were threatening to sack the papal palace. 
Urban, thoroughly frightened, recalled his curses 
and renewed his benedictions; but as his con- 
science would not allow him to take money out 
of the sacred treasury to give to such miscreants, 
he laid a tax on the citizens of Avignon, and they 
had to pay the sum demanded. 

Gregory XL, nephew of Clement VI. was the 
next pope, and the last of the Captivity. He 
secured Avignon from being again put to ransom 
by the Free Companions by taking into his ser- 
vice a troop of them commanded by an English- 
man named Sir John Hawkwood. 

The Florentines had encroached upon the 
States of the Church ; and Gregory, taking a leaf 
out of the book of John XXH., excommunicated 
them and advertised them for sale as slaves; but 
the Florentines proved to be no more merchant- 
able than the Visconti. 

Gregory went to Italy on the same errand as 
Urban V. and was no better received. He made 
however a solemn entry into Rome, and vs^as on 
the point of being driven out, when he suddenly 
died tbicre. Anybody may die suddenly in 



70 HISTORIC BUBBLES 

Rome; but trite as the event reads, Gregory's 
not dying elsewhere brought about a state of 
things worse than the Captivity. 

It was usage to hold the elective conclave in 
the town where the last pope had died, and the 
cardinals assembled in Rome. Out of the six- 
teen, eleven were Frenchmen. All the Avignon 
popes had been French either native or by adop- 
tion ; and the conclave was on the point of choos- 
ing one more French pontiff when a Roman mob 
gathered around it and threatened, if the cardi- 
nals did not elect an Italian, to *'make their heads 
redder than their hats " — that is to cut them 
off. Under this threat the cardinals chose the 
archbishop of Bari, a Neapolitan who was not 
even a cardinal. He took the name of Urban 

VI. and fixed his seat at Rome. 

As soon as the cardinals could levy Free-Com- 
panions enough to defend them from the rab- 
ble, they met at Agnani the place where Boni- 
face had been seized by the ruf^ans of Philip, 
and repudiating the previous election as having 
been made under duress, chose one of their num- 
ber, Robert of Geneva who succeeded to the 
throne of Avignon under the name of Clement 

VII. Thus began what is called the Great 
Schism or Schism of the West. 

The Church has never questioned the authority 
of the Avignon popes of the Captivity, but she 



THE CAPTIVITY OF BABYLON 71 

has stigmatised those of the Schism as anti- 
popes. At that time however, at least half of the 
Roman Catholic world cleaved to them. To 
the see of Avignon adhered France, Spain, Scot- 
land, Poland and Sicily; to the see of Rome, 
England, Germany and Flanders. The Italians 
now acknowledged and now rejected the rule of 
the Roman incumbent, as faction and civil strife 
swayed them. 

On the death of Clement VII., the Avignon 
cardinals elected Peter de Luna one of their 
number, who assumed the name of Benedict 

XIII. 

No point of doctrine separated the two pontifi- 
cates; they were kept asunder by party spirit 
alcne; and everybody began to be tired of the 
scandal. An effort was made on both sides to 
put an end to it. The disciples of Avignon ex- 
torted from Benedict a promise to abdicate 
which he did not keep. Those of the Roman 
obedience also revolted and appealed to the 
Council of Pisa which put forth an edict depos- 
ing both popes and electing a new one. The 
other two refused to lay down their respective 
tiaras; and then christians, and I fear sinners too, 
beheld the spectacle of three popes at once, each 
fulminating bulls of excommunication and 
anathema against his two rivals. The Council 
of Constance then tried its hand. It seized John 



72 HISTORIC BUBBLES 

XXIII. the Roman pontiff who had also 
promised to resign and had not kept his word, 
and put him in prison. This so dishonored the 
name John that no pope has assumed it since, 
though it was the favorite before. Faction how- 
ever still prevailed, and the two conclaves per- 
sisted in making separate elections. 

Avignon still disputed preeminence with 
Rome; but after Benedict XIII. the popes of the 
Schism do not seem to have resided there, and 
the Schism itself became apparently more or less 
vagrant and interrupted. Benedict's successor 
a Spaniard named Munoz who called himself 
Clement VIII. sold out his interest in the 
triple crown for a bishopric; and the Schism 
slept. It was awakened again by the Council of 
Bale which undertook to depose the Roman 
pontiff Eugenius IV., on a charge of heresy, and 
to set up in his place the strangest member of a 
strange family — that of Savoy. The feudal 
chiefs of that house had been known as Counts. 
Owing to their love of fighting and their success 
at it, the Emperor had created them Dukes; and 
a scion of that pugnacious race now reigns over 
Italy. Amadeus VIII. of Savoy, tired of fight- 
ing, turned monk. With a few of his nobles he 
withdrew to a monastery where the whole party 
made such progress in holiness, that the Council 
of Bale raised Amadeus to the papacy with the 



THE CAPTIVITY OF BABYLON 73 

title of Felix V., and scattered bishoprics and 
other preferments among the rest. Eugenius 
mocked at the Council and refused to quit, and 
for nine years more the Church was convulsed 
by rival popes. Eugenius died clinging to the 
keys to the last; and the Savoyard, weary of 
supra-mundane elevation, went back to his 
monastery, leaving Nicholas V. who had suc- 
ceeded Eugenius, sole head of the Church. The 
Schism of the West was at an end: it had lasted 
of¥ and on within a year as long as the Captivity. 
For more than a century, Avignon had been 
a seat of the papacy; and when it ceased to be so 
it was still hallowed ground : secular dominion 
would no longer take root there ; and the Holy 
See remained in possession and governed it. 
The Eternal City herself had been a warning. 
During the paralysis of papal authority there, 
she had been a prey to anarchy. The Orsini, the 
Colonnas and a score of minor brigands had 
desolated her pleasant places, and decimated her 

people. 

Avignon was not to be put to such a trial. 
The Church still governed and order reigned. 
It is true that sometimes when the French kings 
waxed recalcitrant, they would drive out the 
pope's lieutenant and seize the town; but they 
always repented them of the evil, and gave back 
the sacred city unharmed. 



74 HISTORIC BUBBLES 

At last one hundred years ago, those sans 
culottes of the revolution dissolved that charni 
as they did many another. 



The Second House of Burgundy 



P ROUDE in his history, calls the kings of 
^ Spain the house of Burgundy. They were 
properly Hapsburgs and of the eldest branch. 
At the same time they were descended from 
Mary of Burgundy; and it shows how deeply the 
career of her ducal ancestors had impressed itself 
on the mind of the historian, that he would fain 
continue the name beyond conventional usage. 

There were but four of those dukes, and they 
flourished a century only ; but they made changes 
which greatly moulded the polity of Europe. 
England whose history is our history, allowed 
herself to be drawn into the vortex. She allied 
herself with the House of Burgundy for the 
insane purpose of enabling the Plantagenets to 
transfer the seat of their empire from England to 
France, by which England would have been 
reduced to the condition of a province. She 
escaped that humiliation, but at the cost of her 
continental domain, the patrimony of Eleanor 
of Guienne wife of the first Plantagenet king, 
which comprised nearly one-third of France. 
I propose to give some account of the founda- 
(75) 



76 HISTORIC BUBBLES 

tion of that Second House of Burgundy. My 
authority is chiefly but not wholly Barante who 
takes for his motto: Scribitur ad narrandum non 
ad probandum, and is none the less quoted by 
both English and French historians. 

There were two Burgundies: the duchy still 
called Burgundy, and the county better known 
as La Franche Comte. The people of both were 
French; but while the duchy was a fief of France, 
the county was a fief of the Empire. And there 
were two great lines of Burgundian dukes: the first 
the Robertine descended from Robert king of 
France son of Hugh Capet; and the second, the 
Valois line descended from Charles of Valois 
brother of Philip-the-fair. 

The last duke of the Robertine line was Philip 
de Rouvre, so called from the castle of Rouvre 
where he was born near Dijon. He inherited 
both Burgundies and Artois from his grand- 
father, his father having been killed at the siege 
of Aiguillon. Now this Philip de Rouvre, like 
some of my readers, is an interesting personage 
only by the woman he married; and to his wife 
rather than to him I ask your attention. 

She was Margaret daughter of Louis de Male, 
count of Flanders, lord of Ghent, of Bruges, of 
Ypres and of other municipalities of the Low 
Countries. Margaret was his only child and 
beir. It was she who was destined to bring to 



THE SECOND HOUSE OF BURGUNDY 77 

the House of Burgundy, those first acquisitions 
in the Netherlands which were to draw the rest 
after them, and make the Spanish Hapsburgs 
counts of Flanders, of La Franche Comte, of 
Holland, of Hainault; dukes of Brabant, lords 
of Ghent, etc., an accumulation of titles by no 
means empty, such as the world had never seen 
before. In a word, Margaret of Flanders was 
to lay the foundation of the Belgic wing of the 
empire of Charles-the-fifth. 

Margaret was very young when she married 
Philip de Rouvre, and not long after their espou- 
sals Philip died of the plague, leaving Margaret 
childless ; and the great Robertine line which had 
worn the ducal coronet three centuries, v/as 
ended. How then was this childless widow to 
fulfil the destiny we have marked out for her? 

We will leave her to ponder that problem, and 
take up our story at another point. 

John of Valois king of France was called John 
H., though you have to look with a microscope 
into French history, to discover John I. No 
chapter bears his name at the head of it. (v. 
Captivity, page 62.) John H. was called John- 
the-good for no reason that history has ex- 
plained. If he ever did anything that was good, 
it has shared the fate of the men who lived before 
Agamenmon. He was not even a good soldier 
for a king, though very pugnacious. His idea 



78 HISTORIC BUBBLES 

of military strategy was to shut down his visor, 
couch his lance and spur into the thickest of the 
fight. 

In following up these tactics at the battle of 
Poictiers, he was knocked ofif his hoise. He 
could not rise for the weight of his armor; so 
his attendants set him up on end, and he instantly 
began to lay about him again, on foot, with his 
accustomed fury. His eldest son the dauphin, 
seeing that the battle was lost, turned on his 
heel and ran away; and not only lived to fight 
another day but to rule France so well that he 
gained the name of Charles-the-wise. Not so 
Charles' youngest brother Philip a boy of six- 
teen. He stood by his sire to the end; and as 
the enemy pressed in now on this side and now 
on that, he would cry out: Look out father, on 
the right! look out father on the left.' and would 
throw himself in front, and play at cut and thrust 
Hke a gladiator. 

But they might better have followed the ex- 
ample of the dauphin and run away; for they 
were soon borne to the ground and carried off 
prisoners to England. There they were gra- 
ciously received by Edward HI. and queen 
Pbilippa both of whom were related to their 
prisoners. Indeed John and Philippa were first 
cousins, both grandchildren of Charles of Valois. 

After the battle of Poictiers, John gave to the 



THE SECOND HOUSE OF BURGUNDY 79 

brave boy who had stood by him, the name of 
PhiHp-the-bold ; and a touch ®f that quaUty in 
England, confirmed the title. At dinner one day 
the cup-bearer poured out wine to Edward be- 
fore he did to John. This was a double breach 
of etiquette: John was not only a guest, but he 
was the feudal superior, Edward owing him hom- 
age as duke of Aquitaine. Philip was so indig- 
nant at this slight to his father, that he jumped 
up and boxed the cup-bearer's ears. Thou art 
indeed Philip-the-bold! exclaimed Edward more 
amused than vexed. 

But the appellation was premature. Philip 
grew to be as prudent as he was brave. On 
the whole he resembled his brother Charles-the- 
wise more than he did his father the fighting 
John. 

Philip was his father's idol, and this idolatry 
was of grave portent to France. Though John 
had' three older sons, he would have left to Philip 
the crown of France itself if the laws of the realm 
ha4 permitted; but this being impossible he did 
the next worst thing. 

At the death of Philip de Rouvre there was 
strife for the Robertine inheritance. Artois and 
La Franche Com^te fell to Margaret of France 
daughter of PhiHp V. We shall meet this lady 
again. The duchy of Burgundy was claimed by 
king John and by Charles-the-bad, king of Na- 



8o HIS TORIC B UBBLES 

varre, both descended from the Robertines 
through females^ On this footing the claim 
of Charles was the best; but John backed up his 
by pleading that Burgundy was a male fief, and 
that the male line being extinct, the duchy 
escheated to him as king of France. The only 
answer to this logic was the ultima ratio regum; 
but Charles-the-bad's badness had so alienated 
his friends and allies, that he was in no condition 
for that species of arbitrement; so the bad claim 
of John-the-good prevailed over the good claim 
of Charles-the-bad, and the duchy of Burgundy 
was united to the crown. 

It was a priceless acquisition: every dictate of 
prudence, of policy, of patriotism demanded that 
it should be sacredly kept: it was immediately 
thrown away by an act of fatuity which was the 
climax of the bad reign of John-the-good. 
John issued a patent creating his beloved Philip 
Duke of Burgundy, and ceding the duchy to 
him and to his heirs forever. Thus was founded 
in the person of Philip-the-bold, the famous 
second House of Burgundy. 

We left a page or two ago, Margaret of 
Flanders duchess dowager of Burgundy, widowed 
and childless. She was still young, and if not 
quite handsome, any short-coming in that re- 
spect was made up by the provinces that were to 
fall to her from her father the Count Louis: and 



THE SECOND HO USE OF B URG UND V 8i 

there came suitors a-plenty to offer consolation 
to her bereaved heart. Distinguished among 
these consolers were first, Edmund Langley 
fifth son of Edward III.; second, Philip of Valois 
the new duke of Burgundy. Edmund seemed 
to have the lead. He found a good ally in his 
mother Philippa who was herself half Valois as 
we have seen; but her heart was English: she 
hated her French cousins, and now put forth 
all her energy to win away from them this rich 
prize. She pleaded so well with count Louis 
that he consented to give his daughter to Ed- 
mund. But there was another woman who had 
something to say, namely Margaret of France 
the lady I had the honor of introducing to 
you a few moments ago. She was the mother 
of count Louis and grandmother of the young 
widow who was named after her. She was 
thoroughly French and hated her English 
cousins as cordially as Philippa hated her French 
ones; and she declared that not if she co*uld pre- 
vent it, should her granddaughter marry that 
Plantagenet, that Cockney. She and her son 
held a stormy interview. Louis was long re- 
calcitrant; but she finally used an argument to 
which he listened. She was in her own right 
countess of Artois and of La Franche Comte, 
and she threatened to cede those provinces to 
the crown, so that neither he nor his should ever 
6 



82 HISTORIC BUBBLES 

possess one rood of them. Now Louis was in 
the prime of Hfe and hoped to survive his mother, 
and to enjoy Artois and La Franche Comte 
with the rest of his princely inheritance, and there 
was nothing to do but to yield. He took back his 
word to Edmund, and gave it to Philip. But 
there was still another personage to consult. 
Edmund, Philip and Margaret were all related 
and not very remotely: they were all three great- 
great-grand children of Philip IIL Canon law 
forbade the marriage of relations up to the 
seventh degree; and as nobody knew very well 
where the seventh degree was, the Church had 
simplified matters by declaring it to mean any 
relationship that could be traced. A papal dis- 
pensation was therefore necessary; and the case 
was referred to Urban V. who sat upon the throne 
of Avignon: it was for him to say in favor of 
which aspirant he would suspend the canon. 

Some of you may think they ought have asked 
Margaret herself which of her admirers she loved 
best. The chronicles intimate that like a 
devout widow she was ready to take thankfully 
whatever husband the Holy Father should choose 
for her. Urban V. was a Frenchman, and it 
did not take him long to decide in favor of the 
French suitor; and in June 1369, Philip-the- 
bold and Margaret of Flanders were married at 
Ghent. 



THE SECOND HO USE OF B URG UND V 83 

That no kind heart may be troubled about 
Edmund Langley, I will add that that unsuccess- 
ful swain went and manfully offered himself to 
a pretty Spanish girl, natural daughter of Peter- 
the-cruel; and a descendant of that loving pair 
sits at this moment on the throne of Eng- 
land. 

Philip and Margaret had got as far as Bruges 
on their wedding tour when they were out of 
money, and it seems their credit was so poor that 
they could borrow none without security; so 
they had to pawn all their jewels to defray their 
way back to Paris.* 

The bride and groom after a short stay at Paris, 
refitted the castle of Rouvre the birthplace and 
residence of Margaret's first husband, the last 
of the Robertines. Behold then dame Margaret 
once more mistress of Rouvre, wedded to a 
second Philip, and a second time duchess of 
Burgundy. She could now solve the problem; 
and in pursuance of that worthy end, two years 
after her marriage, she brought forth a son. It 
was a wondrous infant : nothing short of the pope 
himself would do for its godfather; so that 
Gregory XI. successor of Urban, stood by proxy 
at the font, and called the boy's name John; and 

* We shall throw some light upon this want of credit 
in princes of the blood, when we come to speak of Louis 
of Orleans. 



84 HISTORIC BUBBLES 

as he grew up in the fear of neither God nor man, 
he become known as John-the-fearless. 

John-the-good's badness was ended; and his 
son Charles V. called the Wise, reigned. He 
was as unlike his foolish and fighting sire as pos- 
sible. He was probably brave like the rest of 
his race, though he disclaimed any such virtue, 
and ran away at Poictiers; but he was passed 
master in the school of diplomacy. 

The Plantagenets had inherited, as we have 
said, nearly one-third of France ; and they coveted 
the rest. This covetousness was backed up by 
the English people who were ignorant enough 
not to see that they were fighting to degrade the 
crown of England to a mere apanage of the crown 
of France. 

So long as the reign of the incapable John 
lasted, Edward HI. had had his own way; but 
the prudence and adroitness of Charles, worked 
a change. Seconded by his brother Philip and 
by his constable Du Guesclin, he took without 
a battle, town after town, castle after castle, till 
Edward declared that the most formidable of 
his enemies was the one who did not fight. This 
new style of warfare was illustrated by the cap- 
ture of La Rochelle. The castle was held by 
an English garrison, and to hold the castle was 
to hold the town. One day the chief magistrate 
asked the English commander to dinner. While 



THE SECOND HOUSE OE BURGUNDY 85 

at table, a forged despatch was brought to the 
EngHshman. It was an order to march his 
garrison into the pubHc square for a review. He 
had taken wine enough to be confident of his 
luck, so he obeyed the order. The townsmen 
who were watching for their chance, seized the 
castle and the garrison shut out of their strong- 
hold and outnumbered, surrendered. 

As a rule the Plantagenets waged these wars 
with a ferocity which contributed to their failure. 
But they were not Englishmen; and it is strange 
that English historians should accept their mis- 
deeds as one element of national glory. Green 
says they were ''English to the core." Well, 
there was not one whole drop of insular blood in 
their veins: there was, to be sure, a fraction of a 
drop coming from Matilda daughter of the 
Malcolm of Macbeth and grandmother of the 
first Plantagenet king; and that was all. They 
were French Spaniards, and their pedigree was 
even more enriched with Moorish blood than 
with English.^ 

But there were some honorable exceptions to 
their usual behavior. The duke of Gloucester 
youngest son of Edward III. was besieging 
Troyes. A French knight named Micaille sent 



*Of the two grandmothers of Edward III., one, 
Eleanor of Castile, was pure Spanish, and the other, 
Joanna of Navarre, was half or more. 



86 HISTORIC BUBBLES 

a challenge to any English knight to fight with 
him for the love of his sweetheart. These by- 
fights were often to settle precedence of beauty 
between respective sweethearts. A knight no 
sooner fell in love than he went swaggering 
about daring every other knight in love or out, to 
fight; and these combats were often mortal. An 
Englishman named Fitzwalter accepted the 
challenge. The lists were held in the English 
camp. Gloucester who was so learned on the 
subject of these duels that he wrote a treatise 
on them which still exists, laid down the rule 
that the lance should be addressed either to the 
shield or the helmet and not elsewhere. The 
Englishman's horse was unruly and disturbed 
his aim, so that he took his adversary in the thigh, 
and inflicted an ugly wound. The duke pro- 
nounced the blow a foul one, and adjudged the 
victory to the Frenchman who had splintered his 
lance duly and truly against the buckler of his 
opponent. English surgeons dressed his wound, 
and English soldiers carried him back with honor 
to the French garrison. 

Charles V. married Jane of Bourbon a princess 
of that youngest branch of the Capetiens which 
finally came to the throne. His nobles had 
made an earnest effort to have him instead of his 
brother Philip, marry Margaret of Flanders. 
Had he done so, Flanders, Artois and La Franche 



THE SECOND HO USE OF B URG UND V 87 

Comte would have fallen early to the French 
crown; and the history, of the Valois dukes 
might have been as uninteresting as that of their 
predecessors the Robertines. 

It shows of how Httle account the Bourbons 
were at that time, that the king's marriage was 
looked upon as a sort of misalliance; and the 
duke of Bourbon Queen Jane's brother was not 
admitted to a share in the government because 
his estates were not considered ample enough. 

Charles-the-wise died after a reign of sixteen 
years during which he had found a remedy for 
all the misrule of his father except the alienation 
of Burgundy : that was beyond cure ; but as PhiUp 
was always true to his brother and to France, 
it was not yet that the evil was apparent. 

Charles was succeeded by his son Charles VI. 
who was but eleven years old; and duke Philip 
became regent. Philip's two brothers were 
nominally joined with him in the regency; but 
they were unworthy scions of royalty, the one 
intent only on fiUing his pockets, the other on 
filling his belly; so that in effect the whole power 
rested with Philip. The duke of Bourbon the 
young king's uncle again sought a share in the 
government, and was again denied. Such at the 
close of the fourteenth century, were the ances- 
tors of Louis XIV. haughtiest of monarchs. 
Duke Philip led the young monarch to Rheims 



88 HISTORIC BUBBLES 

to be crowned. He was to be knighted first, 
so the boy in obedience to the law of chivalry, 
sat up all night in the cathedral, watching his 
arms, ready to meet face to face the caitiff who 
should attempt to steal them. In the morning 
the sword Joyeuse, sword of Charlemagne, was 
girded to his loins. His uncle the duke of Anjou 
bestowed the accolade and pronounced him a 
belted knight. The archbishop of Rheims 
poured on his head oil from the sacred vase a 
dove had brought to Saint Remi for the baptism 
of Clevis, and pronounced him an anointed king. 

The attention of Philip was soon called to the 
affairs of his father-in-law Count Louis. Some 
years before, a brewer of Ghent named Jacob 
Van Artevelde had headed a sedition and erected 
himself into a sort of tribune of the people. 
Queen Philippa who was by birth a Fleming and 
liked to meddle with Flemish business, was his 
patron. Like a true politician she had deigned 
to stand godmother to the brewer's son, and to 
have him named Philip after herself. The father 
Jacob Van Artevelde like his cotemporary 
Rienzi, was put to death by the populace he had 
sought to befriend; and this son now a man 
grown, was residing at Ghent a prosperous 
gentleman. 

Philip Van Artevelde has been much apothe- 
osised by English poets and dramatists: sober 



THE SECOND HO USE OF B URGUND V 89 

history hardly bears out the deification. Under 
a tranquil exterior he hid an eager and ruthless 
ambition which was only waiting its opportunity; 
and that opportunity was at hand. The inhabit- 
ants of Bruges had obtained from. Count Louis 
permission to cut a canal to the Scheldt so as to 
go to sea that way. The citizens of Ghent re- 
monstrated saying that themselves only had a 
right to go to sea by the Scheldt. The remon- 
strance proving fruitless they fitted out a- band 
of ruffians who slew the men digging the canal. 
Count Louis sent a messenger to Ghent demand- 
ing reparation: they killed the messenger. 

Thus far the case was not beyond adjustment: 
there were more men to dig canals; and the count 
had more messengers; but the Ghenters incon- 
tinently went to a length which put them out of 
the pale of forgiveness. Count Louis had just 
finished the beautiful castle of Vandelhem. All 
the resources of architecture and of art had been 
lavished upon it. It was his boast, his pride, his 
bawble. He confessed that he prized it beyond 
all else on earth. The Ghenters broke into 
Vandelhem and left it a ruin. War was inevi- 
table. 

The head mischief maker of Ghent was Peter 
Dubois called by the Dutch, Vandenbosche. 
He recalled to Van Artevelde the noble career of his 
father, and told him that the prestige of his name 



90 HISTORIC BUBBLES 

was all that was needed for the success of the revolt. 
He found a willing listener, but misled by the 
gentle manners of Van Artevelde, he expressed 
a fear that he might not be equal to the rough 
work, and dwelt on the necessity of showing no 
mercy to the Brugian faction. Van Artevelde 
assured him that if blood was all there should 
flow enough of it; and the two conspirators hav- 
ing come to an understanding, levied their 
troops. 

Van Artevelde to get his hand in, cut the heads 
off of twelve burgesses of Ghent who had taken 
part against his father, and applied the same 
discipline to the syndic of the weavers who was 
in favor of law and order. Count Louis not to 
be outdone in barbarity, took the town of Gram- 
mont which favored the insurgents, and put to 
the sword men women and children. The 
bishop of Liege and the duke of Brabant inter- 
fered, and a conference was held. Two deputies 
of Ghent met two deputies of the count; and pre- 
liminaries were adjusted. When the Ghentian 
pacificators returned, Dubois and Van Artevelde 
met them at the town-hall. How dare you treat 
for peace! cried Dubois, and he ran his man 
through with his dagger, while Van Artevelde 
despatched the other. 

The two chieftains now resolved on a master 
stroke, the capture of Bruges. Count Louis 



THE SECOND HOUSE OF BURGUNDY 91 

hastened to intercept them. His force was 
superior to theirs; but Van Artevelde made a 
stirring speech to his men showing them that 
victory was their only chance even for hfe. He 
seized a convent of monks and compelled them 
to confess the soldiers and administer the com- 
munion,and thus prepare them to fight to the 
death. They won the obstinate battle which 
followed and took Bruges. The count fled 
through the town, the enemy at his heels. He 
dodged down an obscure street and into an ob- 
scure lodging where a woman a true Brugian 
who hated the Ghenters, put him to bed in the 
garret with her children till the pursuit was over. 
The count appealed for aid to his son-in-law 
duke Philip. The latter gentleman was not well 
pleased to see his wife's patrimony wasted by 
brewers of beer, so he levied an army in France 
and marched into Flanders. The king who was 
now fourteen and whose blood was on fire at 
the sound of a trumpet, insisted on accompanying 
the expedition. They met the insurgents at 
Rosebeke near Ypres. Van Artevelde and 
Dubois flushed with their previous success, were 
confident of victory. Van Artevelde himself 
issued the order that no quarter be given. Slay 
every Frenchman, cried he, except the young 
king! Bring him to Ghent and we will teach 
him to speak Flemish. 



92 HISTORIC B UBBLES 

But they had left out of their reckoning one 
factor which perhaps oftener than any other 
determines the fate of battle. Duke Philip though 
himself a good captain, was prudent enough not to 
trust to his own soldiership when better was at 
hand. He had put his army under the command 
of Oliver de Clisson constable of France, the 
worthy successor of Du Guesclin. The stub- 
born courage of the Netherlanders was of no 
avail against the skill with which De Clisson 
directed his legions; and at the close of a bloody 
day the men of Ghent were routed. 

At night-fall as the king, the duke, the count 
and the constable were walking over the field 
of battle, picking their way among the slain, a 
dying soldier raised his arm and pointed to a 
heap of dead bodies close by. They dragged 
aside alternate Frenchman and Fleming till they 
came to all that remained of Philip Van Arte- 
velde. He had died like a sollier where the 
fight was the hottest. Dubois escaped wounded 
to England. 

Charles-the-wise when dying had counselled 
his brother of Burgundy to marry the young king 
to a German princess in order to strengthen 
alliance with the Empire. Stephen duke of 
Bavaria had a daughter named Isabella; and the 
duchess Margaret together with her friend and 
gossip the duchess of Brabant resolved to make 



THE SECOND HOUSE OF BURGUNDY 93 

the match. Isabella was fourteen. She was 
handsome enough, but she was an uncouth tom- 
boy and dressed in a style that was anything but 
French. The duchess of Brabant took her in hand, 
and by much discipline of her own seconded 
by a French dancing-master and a French dress- 
maker, succeeded in breaking this romping 
Rhinelander into some semblance of polite be- 
havior. She was presented to the king who 
was now seventeen. She knelt at his feet with 
perfect grace: he raised her up and made a com- 
mon-place remark, and she said just the right 
thing in reply. She had been made to rehearse 
the whole scene beforehand, in the king's absence. 
He was charmed with her beauty and her man- 
ners, and he fell in love with her and married her. 
She turned out to be a veritable Messalina and 
did what she could to add to the misfortunes of 
France. 

Another notable marriage a year later, that 
is in 1387, was that of the king's brother Louis 
duke of Orleans with his cousin Valentina 
daughter of Galeazzo Visconti lord of Milan. 
The Visconti were rich, and a million of florins 
went to the dowry of Valentina. This marriage 
too brought disaster a century later when the 
great-grandson of Louis and Valentina, in 
attempting to recover the patrimony of the Vis- 
conti, was led captive to Madrid, 



94 HISTORIC B UBBLES 

The constable De Clisson, the victor of Rose- 
beke, had a bitter enemy in John de Montfort 
duke of Brittany. One night in Paris, De Clis- 
son returning from an entertainment given by 
Louis and Valentina, was suddenly attacked and 
knocked senseless into the doorway of a baker's 
shop. The bnker dragofed him in and sent for a 
surgeon. The king himself who was fond of 
the constable, came to see him. The blow was 
not fatal; and De Clisson had recognised his 
assailant. It was a well known myrmidon of 
the duke of Brittany. The king vowed ven- 
geance. .His uncle of Burgundy tried to pacify 
him and to persuade him to leave the matter to 
him; but the king was not to be pacified; and 
duke Philip was obliged to follow him into 
Brittany with an armed force. 

It was the first week in August, and the heat 
was intense. The king in order to suffer less 
from the dust, was riding separate from the rest. 
Suddenly he wheeled his horse and crying out 
Death to the traitors! charged upon the nearest 
of his followers. They all scattered till one of 
them, a tall trooper, pounced on him from be- 
hind and pinioned him. He was stark mad ; and 
during the rest of his long and calamitous reign 
his reason returned only at intervals. 

The king's malady arrested the expedition 
against De Montfort; and De Clisson who re- 



THE SECOND HOUSE OF BURGUNDY 95 

covered from his wound, was left to be his own 
avenger. He was not slack about it; and if he 
was not so powerful as his adversary, he was the 
better soldier, so between them both they stirred 
up a civil war of such dimensions, that the duke 
of Burgundy who was again regent was obliged 
to interfere. Dame Margaret his duchess was 
related to the Montforts, so as he valued peace 
at his own fire-side he thought best to proceed 
with caution. He sent to his cousin of Brittany 
a few puncheons of the finest Burgundy wine, 
and followed himself with a retenue of archers 
and men-at-arms. De Montfort relishc I the 
wine more than he did the visitors: the latter 
looked suspiciously like an armament, and he 
promised to keep the peace. 

The rest reads like romance and yet is history. 
De Clisson received from the duke of Brittany, 
from the man who had plotted his asrassination, 
a message offering reconciliation, and inviting 
him to a personal interview. The constable was 
not to be caught with chaff. He answered that 
he would come provided the duke's eldest son 
was put in his hands as a hostage. To his 
astonishment the boy, the heir of the Montforts, 
was sent to him. The meeting took place, and 
John de Montfort and Oliver de Clisson were 
friends ever after; and years later when the duke 
went to Paris to marry this boy to the king's 



96 HISTORIC BUBBLES 

daughter, he left de CHsson in charge of his 
domains and his household. 

These were the days of the Great Schism^ 
the days of two rival popes Urban VI , and Clem- 
ent VII. and the division of Christendom into 
two factions, the Urbanists and the Clementists. 
(See Captivity of Babylon.) 

The king had displayed some excellent and 
even brilliant qualities; and his sudden insanity 
drew forth expressions of sympathy from all 
parts of Europe. As to its cause opinions differed. 
The clergy of England and Flanders who were 
Urbanists, preached that it was because the king 
upheld the schismatic pope of Avignon; the 
clergy of France and Spain who were Clement- 
ists, that it was because the king had not invaded 
Italy and deposed the schismatic pope of Rome. 
The laity were convinced that the king was be- 
witched, and they even pointed out the wicked 
persons who had done it. Among these was the 
duchess Valentina whom the king regarded with 
brotherly affection. The evidence against her 
was that she was an Italian: were not all the 
Italians sorcerers and necromancers? Hermits 
and other holy men far and near were sum- 
moned to exorcise the king and cast the devil 
out of him. One cross-grained philosopher, half 
ecclesiastic half physician, with a scepticism that 
did not belong to the fourteenth century, main- 



THE SECOND HO USE OF BURG UND Y 97 

tained that Charles was neither bewitched nor 
bedevilled; that the schism had nothing to do 
with it; that the clergy were a pack of fools and 
the people brute beasts; that it was simply a case 
of mental breaking-down from over excitement 
and dissipation. The Church had received such 
rough handling from PhiHp-the-fair, that it 
dared not interfere; and this scioHst was left to 
flaunt his unbelief in the faces of the devout. 

The duke of Burgundy's oldest son John, 
god-son of the pope, was now twenty-five. He 
was small of stature but well knit and vigorous 
and a good soldier. Burning for glory he led 
a detachment of French and Flemings to the aid 
of the king of Hungary against the Turk Bajazet. 
They were successful in a skirmish and took 
some prisoners. To these they offered the 
choice either to turn Christians or to be slain. 
A French monk was sent who exhorted them 
long and earnestly; but they did not understand 
French, and consequently gave no evidence of 
conviction and conversion: they were put to 
death accordingly. The battle of NicopoHs fol- 
lowed, where the Christians were totally de- 
feated. John and some of his comrades were 
brought before Bajazet who reminded them of 
their cruelty to their own prisoners, and ordered 
the heads to be struck off of all except John 
and one or two others for whose ransom he ex- 
7 



98 HISTORIC BUBBLES 

pected large sums. Legend says that a sooth- 
sayer warned Bajazet not to kill John of Bur- 
gundy; that that Prankish prince was destined 
to be more fatal to his brother misbelievers than 
all the Turks in Asia Minor. 

The duke when he heard of his son's captivity, 
laid a tax on his dominions and sent the required 
ransom to Bajazet who dismissed John with the 
remark that whenever he chose to come again 
on the same errand, he might count on the same 
welcome. 

Good and pious churchmen all over Europe 
had tried in vain to put an end to the strife be- 
tween two rival pontiffs who missed no occa- 
sion to curse each other in all those awful formu- 
las provided for the heretical and reprobate; and 
the secular powers had at last taken the matter 
up. 

The king had had a long season of being 
rational; and the duke of Burgundy thought it 
a favorable time for a conference between the 
king and the emperor on the state of the schism. 
The duke as a Frenchman, leaned toward the 
see of Avignon, but he kept it to himself because 
Dame Margaret being a Fleming, was of the 
other persuasion. Rheims the capital of Cham- 
pagne was chosen as the place of meeting. It 
was a bad choice as we shall see. 



THE SECOND HO USE OF B U ROUND V 99 

Wenceslas emperor of Germany was a reformer 
who believed in the high hand and the out- 
stretched arm. On one occasion suspecting 
the fidelity of his wife, he summoned her spiritual 
director, and commanded him to divulge what 
he had heard from her lips at the confessional. 
The priest refused. The emperor ordered him 
sewed up in a sack and thrown into the Moldau; 
and the empress had to look for another con- 
fessor. But the emperor had one failing: he 
was by spells convivial, and then he was some- 
times as delirious as the king of France himself. 
It was in the autumn of 1397 that these two 
high consulting parties arrived at Rheims. The 
emperor was followed by his landgraves, his 
margraves, his burgraves and other grave gentle- 
men who talked German together so gravely that 
you would have sworn they understood each 
other. The king escorted by the duke of Bur- 
gundy, came with equal splendor. Charles was 
beginning to show symptoms of returning 
wildness; but that only made him all the more 
bent on the interview. Wenceslas on his part, 
had so strengthened his mind with the delicious 
wines of Champagne that he was ready to deal 
with a score of schisms. 

They met, they conferred, they argued, they 
disputed, they quarrelled, they shouted. They 
called each other schismatics, heretics, traitors, 



lOO HISTORIC B UBBLES 

liars, thieves, assassins, till their respective 
attendants were fain to bear them bodily forth, 
the one raving drunk, the other raving crazy. 

The imperial diet was so little satisfied with this 
reformer's success at the conference, that they 
passed upon him a sentence of deposition. He 
appealed from the sentence; and it was agreed 
that the duke of Burgundy and the French 
Council of State should arbitrate. Wenceslas 
sent as his advocate John of Moravia the most 
learned doctor of laws in Europe, who delivered 
before the duke and council a speech several 
hours long in latin of which they understood not 
one word. The diet on its side, sent Stephen 
of Bavaria the queen's father who took with him 
an adroit pettifogging lawyer who spoke French. 
It was natural that the arbitrators should lean 
toward the pleadings they comprehended, and 
they gave in their adherence to the action of the 
diet. Rupert, count Palatine was elected 
emperor in the place of Wenceslas. 

The evil genius of France at this time, was the 
king's brother Louis of Orleans the husband of 
Valentina. He was showy, accomplished and 
for a nobleman learned, but he was unprincipled. 
While squandering money in every extravagance 
he was in debt for the necessaries of life; and woe 
to the tradesman who dared present his bill! 
One day his horses ran away with him and 



THE SECOND HOUSE OF BURGUNDY loi 

nearly threw him into the Seine. In the im- 
minent peril he made a vow to the Virgin 
that he would pay his debts. He called his 
creditors together, and after a touching address 
in which he ascribed the glory of his rescue to the 
Queen of Heaven, he dismissed them without 
their money. 

His uncle of Burgundy had excluded him from 
the council of State; and he put forth all his 
resources which were considerable, to embarrass 
the public business. He protested against the 
approval of the diet, and raised fifteen hundred 
soldiers and marched or pretended to march to 
the aid of the fallen emperor. He threatened 
to go to deliver the pope who was held in a sort 
of honorable captivity in his palace at Avignon. 
During the absence of the duke in Flanders, 
Louis and his compeer in evil, Queen Isabella, 
seized the reins of government and filled Paris 
with their satellites. The duke came back with 
an armed force and bloodshed was threatened; 
but the two dukes came to a truce and appeared 
in the streets, riding side by side, to the relief 
of well-disposed people. 

Duke Philip soon returned to Flanders, and 
while in apparent health he was attacked by a 
disease then prevalent and which was probably 
typhoid fever, and died in his castle of Hal, in 
April 1404, in his seventy-third year. Philip- 



102 HISTORIC BUBBLES 

the-bold was the first and best of the Valois dukes 
of Burgundy. If the French people were not 
happy under his administration, it was that 
happiness could not be their lot . Their 
country was desolated by the English wars, 
and war was uppermost in their minds. Even 
in intervals of peace they would have no peace; 
and military games not always bloodless were 
the amusement of all classes. On one occasion 
a challenge was received from the English pale, 
that seven French knights should meet seven 
English to fight a outrance, which means mortal 
combat. The challenge was accepted. The most 
noted of the French seven was Tanneguy du 
Chatel whom we shall meet again in a scene of 
bloodshed more important. (See Two Jaquelines.) 
The English knights had planned that at the on- 
set, two of them at once should attack Du 
Chatel, and he done for, they thought to have 
an easy bargain of the rest. This would of course 
leave for a moment one of the French champ- 
ions without an antagonist, and they arranged 
that this floating warrior should be one they 
feared the least. This was an awkward gentle- 
man from Champagne, of no great renown, who 
had been let into the French seven for his pon- 
derous strength. When the signal was given, 
this unwieldy knight for want of something 
better, threw himself upon the stoutest of the 



THE SECOND HOUSE OF BURGUNDY 103 

English seven, and with a single blow laid him 
dead at his feet. The English could not over- 
come this disadvantage and were worsted. It 
is but just to say that the French chroniclers ex- 
plain differently the defeat of the English. The 
French seven, before the fi^ht, had heard mass 
and received the communion, while the English 
had neglected that precaution. 

The king's mental disorder grew worse. The 
worthless queen abandoned him on the plea that 
she was afraid of him, and he was often shame- 
fully neglected. While the whole court was 
drinking the choicest wines of Burgundy and 
Bordeaux, the king was served with such abomin- 
able piquette, that he was often doubled up with 
the coHc. It is true he was at times stubborn 
and violent. On one occasion he refused to 
wash his face and put on clean linen. Three 
stout fellows sprang in upon him and by main 
strength washed him and changed him. 

The opinion that he was possessed was nearly 
universal, and means of casting out the evil spirit 
were not omitted. Three famous exorcists, a 
priest, a locksmith and a woman who had had 
much success in that branch of therapeutics, 
came to cure him. They took him out into a 
grove, and seated him in a magic chair. They 
planted around him twelve stakes to each of 
which was attached a chain, every seventh link 



104 HISTORIC B UBBLES 

of silver. Then they announced that twelve 
persons of repute must be fastened to the stakes 
by the neck. Such was the devotion to the mon- 
arch that knights, magistrates, burgesses all 
pressed to offer themelves. Twelve were chosen 
and with their faces toward the king were 
chained not tight enough to choke them but 
enough to give them a gruesome expression 
which would now be called weird. The incan- 
tation was in full blast when one of the twelve 
losing either faith or breath crossed himself. 
This broke the spell, and the king lapsed into 
a worse frenzy than ever. 

In March 1405, Margaret countess of Flanders, 
double duchess dowager of Burgundy died, hav- 
ing survived her second Philip but eleven 
months. She seems to have been every way 
reputable and worthy except that she was im- 
perious and domineering. Philip either from 
unswerving affection or because he knew what 
would be his portion at home if he did not behave, 
was always true to her, a virtue not much in 
vogue in those days. The contention between 
him and his nephew of Orleans, was fully shared 
by their wives; and the lofty airs of the Flemish 
dame were not put up with submissively by the 
high-spirited Italian: indeed those two august 
ladies at times so far forgot their augustness as 
to call each other names. 



THE SECOND HOUSE OF BURGUNDY 105 

John-the-fearless was now duke of Burgundy 
and count of Flanders. In the French peerage, 
Burgundy was held to outrank Orleans, and 
John claimed to be first peer of the realm. His 
claim did not pass undisputed: Louis of Orleans 
was the king's brother and in default of the king's 
sons, might become king himself; and bitter as 
had been the feud between him and his uncle, 
that between him and his cousin, was so much 
more so that it was fated to destroy them both. 
John and Louis mustered their respective 
forces and marched to Paris. The old duke of 
Berri uncle to both and to the king, brought 
about a truce. Then as troops were ready for 
any mischief, Louis proposed to lead their joint 
levies against the English provinces; and John 
consented in hopes that some honest Cockney 
or Gascon might knock him on the head. 

A girl who was crazy and therefore considered 
inspired, told Louis that the expedition would 
succeed provided he kissed the head of Saint 
Denis before setting out. He was proceeding 
to the abbey of Saint Denis for that purpose 
when the canons of Notre Dame informed him 
that it was they who possessed the true head of 
the saint, and that the other was a fraud. The 
monks of the abbey retorted the charge of im- 
posture; the canons answered back; and these 
two reverend bodies opened upon each other 



io6 HISTORIC BUBBLES 

such a fire of abuse and recrimination that the 
king who happened to be rational, imposed si- 
lence on them both. In the uncertainty, Louis 
must have kissed the wrong head, for the ex- 
pedition failed. It was now duke John's turn; 
he made an attack upon Calais and was repulsed. 
On his return the quarrel between him and 
Louis broke out more fiercely than ever. Once 
more did their uncle of Berri interpose and bring 
them to partake of the communion together; but 
it was too late, the feud was mortal. 

Louis was intimate with the queen and passed 
much of his time in her company. One night 
when he was supping with her, the message 
came that the king v/ished to see him. He 
mounted his mule and escorted by a few ser- 
vants carrying torches, took his way toward the 
king's lodgings. Suddenly he was attacked by 
armed men. Thinking there was some mistake 
he cried out I am the duke of Orleans! You are 
the man we want, was the response, and they 
struck him down and left him dead. 

Even at that time when acts of violence were 
so common, the murder of the king's brother in 
the streets of the capital, gave a shock to the 
court; and vigorous search was made for the 
assassins. Suspicion fell at first on the lord of 
Canny whose wife Louis had misled; but it was 
soon shown that Canny was many leagues away 



THE SECOND HOUSE OF BURGUNDY^ 107 

that night. Evidence at last pressed so close 
around John of Burgundy that he confessed the 
deed. He laid the blame to the devil who he 
said had put him up to it. At the same time he 
proclaimed the duke of Orleans a public enemy 
deservedly slain. He employed a Franciscan 
named John Petit renowned for his eloquence, 
to justify the act. The monk in an oration 
which has come down to us, and in which dates, 
events, personages, customs, creeds, epochs are 
jumbled together in matchless confusion, de- 
monstrated that the taking off of Louis de Valois 
was the most righteous taking off since the day 
when Samuel hewed Agag to pieces before the 
Lord in Gilgal. 

Felon as he was, John was still popular with 
the Parisiens. He had a good deal of rough 
talent and many of the arts of the politician. 
Moreover he paid his debts, a rare virtue for a 
prince of the blood of those days. His father 
had died owing his butcher and his grocer and 
his tailor, and John had not hesitated to sell the 
furniture of his town palace the hotel Artois, to 
pay these tradesmen. They had not forgotten 
how his rival had served them on that solemn 
occasion when all the glory was ascribed to Our 
Lady; and they were not to blame if they pre- 
ferred the man who paid to the man who did not. 

Duke John married Margaret of Bavaria, and 



lo8 HISTORIC B UBBLES 

her brother William, Count of Hainault, married 
John's sister Margaret. It was decreed that no 
Margaret should marry without bringing in- 
creased power to the house of Burgundy; and 
it was the nuptials of these two Margarets that 
made possible some years later, the violence 
and fraud which wrested Holland, Zealand, 
Hainault and other provinces from John's niece 
Jaqueline, sole issue of the last named mar- 
riage. (See Two Jaquelines). 

John's wife Margaret had another brother, 
John of Bavaria, bishop of Liege, called John- 
the-pitiless, a riotous prelate and a cruel, whose 
riotings and whose cruelties were to be one more 
element of strength to the dukes of Burgundy. 
The town of Li6ge on the river Meuse, was a 
fief of the Empire, but was under ecclesiastical 
government. The chief magistrate was a bishop. 
The reigning diocesan at this time, was that dis- 
reputable brother-in-law of John-the-fearless. 
The inhabitants of Li6ge weary of his unclerical 
behavior, had driven him out of their territory. 
He besought his brother of Burgundy to reinstate 
him; and John, with an eye to acquiring that sort 
of predominance over both diocese and diocesan, 
which is now-a-days called a protectorate, levied 
his troops. The Liegeois prepared to receive 
him. The two armies met at Hasbain. The 
duke's force was small but well disciplined. The 



THE SECOND HO USE OF B URG UND V 109 

Liegeois aided by five hundred English archers 
were the stronger, and so proud a front did they 
present, that the d^uke's lieutenants warned him 
of the risk of a general engagement. What, 
cried he, have I come as far as this to quail 
before a rabble of tinkers and tailors ! and he 
gave the signal for combat. 

There is no doubt that John-the-fearless was 
in his element on the field of battle. He did 
not, as did his grandfather John-the-good, mount 
his charger and precipitate himself into the 
wrong place at the wrong moment; but astride 
an active little jennet, he flew from rank to rank, 
directing everything and inspiring everybody. 
The Liegeois charged in column upon his centre. 
His pikemen stood firm. He detached a body 
of cavalry which spurred into the flank of the 
advancing column, and it gave way. 

Just before the battle John had confessed and 
received absolution and eucharist, so that his 
conscience was clear for a new score. He or- 
dered that no quarter be given, and the conflict 
became a massacre. But few of the men of 
Liege escaped. Their leader a citizen named 
Pervez was found dead on the field, still holding 
by the hand, his son dead by his side. 

The Liegeois were crushed, and their mitred 
but unregenerate suzerain was again set to reign 
over them. What with those who had perished 



I lo HISTORIC B UBBLES 

in the massacre and those he threw directly 
after into the Meuse, it would seem that he had 
not many subjects left to govern. 

In the articles of submission which the surviv- 
ing few were compelled to sign, it was agreed 
that if they were again disobedient, they were to 
be laid under that awful discipline an interdict, 
provided there existed any authority competent 
to fulminate interdicts. The Schism comes up 
again to explain this curious proviso. The 
Council of Pisa was sitting to restore unity to 
the Church. They had declared the throne of 
Saint Peter to be one and indivisible; and they 
had declared it vacant in spite of the incumbent 
at Rome and the incumbent at Avignon. They 
had elected a new pope to that vacancy. The 
other two refused to abdicate, so there were 
three popes; and as each was himself under 
double interdict by the anathemas launched at 
him by his own rivals, it was doubtful whether 
a rescript from such maimed authority would 
be canonical. So paralysed was the Church 
that even her curses would no longer hold. The 
degree to which they recovered their validity 
when the Schism was healed, is a point of 
history that illustrates the saying that truth is 
stranger than fiction. 

The news of the victory of Hasbain was not 
good news to the queen and the court who 



THE SECOND HOUSE OF BURGUNDY in 

favored the Orleans faction, and were alarmed 
at the growing power of the duke of Burgundy. 
A council was held, and the king spirited away 
to Tours. An accidental delay of the duke, 
gave them time for this. He had stopped at 
Lille to settle a quarrel between his brother, 
Anthony and his brother-in-law William of 
Hainault, touching 50,000 florins left by the late 
duchess of Brabant. They were on the point 
of deciding by mortal combat which should 
have the money, when the duke came. I regret 
I cannot inform you which of them got the 
50,000 florins. 

The escape of the king from under his hand, 
was a serious loss to the duke who was aiming 
at supreme control; and on reaching Paris he 
bent all his diplomacy to recover possession of 
the monarch. He won over the grand master 
of the king's household, a parvenu named Mon- 
tague; and by his means Charles was brought 
back to the capital. 

Montague by minding his own business, had 
grown wealthy; and as he was now of no further 
use to his new friends, they put him to torture, 
and made him confess a list of crimes he had 
never committed. They then cut off his head, 
gibbetted his carcass, and divided his estates 
among them, duke John getting the castle of 
Marcoussis for his share. 



112 HISTORIC BUBBLES 

- When the distracted king came slowly and 
mistily to a sense of the way his faithful steward 
had been done to death, and his wealth seized 
by his murderers, he was wroth. He wandered 
about the palace of Saint Paul muttering venge- 
ance; but the queen who in the meantime had 
sold herself to the Burgundians, represented 
to him how unseemly it was for a parvenu 
like Montague to own castles ; and Charles 
after a vain struggle to master the point, let 
it drop. 

We propose incidentally to resume the history 
of the dukes of Burgundy in our essay on the 
Jaquelines, 



EPILOGUE. 

Madame de Sevigne said that Providence 
favors the best battalions. It was she who was 
the author of that remark, and not Frederick-the- 
great nor Napoleon nor others to whom it is 
attributed. It has not always proved true. Henry 
v., ablest of the Plantagenets, at the head of the 
best armies then existing, tried to wrest the scep- 
tre of France from the palsied hand of Charles 
VI., and perished in the attempt. From the 
loms of that crazy monarch and his worse than 



THE SECOND HO USE OF B URGUND K 1 13 

crazy queen, came forth that House of Tudor 

which, by the ordeal of battle, displaced the 

Plantagenet on the throne of England. 

Much bad logic and worse history has been 

put forth in good EngHsh, touching the claim of 

Edward III. to the throne of France. It is 

often said that Edward denied the validity of the 

salic law. He did nothing of the kind. His 

theory was that the salic law, while it excluded 

females, did not exclude their progeny, and he 

claimed the crown of France by right of his 

mother Isabella daughter of Philip-the-fair. 

But even this theory gave the right to somebody 

else, as Hume has shown, and as we propose to 

make visible to the naked eye. 

*. 
Philip IV.=Joanna, queen regnant of Navarre 

I 

I n i f 

Louis X. Philip V. Charles IV. Isabella. 

ill I 

Joanna. Daughters. Daughter Edward III. 

I 

La 
King of Navarre 



Charles-the-bad, ) 



Edward's theory would have given the crown 
of France to Charles-the-bad, grandson of Louis 
X. It went to Philip of Valois, Philip VI. by 
right of unbroken male descent from Hugh 



1 14 HISTORIC B UBBLES 

Capet, as it did long afterwards to the House of 
Bourbon. 

Louis IX. Eighth in male line from Hugh Capet. 
Philip III. 



I I 

Philip 1 V. Charles of Valois. 

I 
Philip VI. 

I 

John II. 



Two Jaquelines 



T^HEY were both Dutchwomen. They were 
* cotemporaries and lived in the fifteenth 
century. They both contributed, though un- 
wittingly and by their love scrapes, to break the 
alliance between England and Burgundy, and 
thus to the salvation of the French monarchy. 
They were both of high lineage and married 
kings' sons: one of them married two kings' sons; 
and they both married commoners. One of 
them died without issue; the other by a mis- 
alliance with a simple knight, became the mother 
of a line of kings as long as that which Macbeth 
saw when the race of Banquo defiled before him. 
Iiideed Macbeth on that dread occasion looked 
till he beheld those who ''two fold balls and 
triple sceptres bore," and those were of the gene- 
ration of Jaqueline. 

John-the-fearless, second of the four Valois 
dukes of Burgundy married Margaret of Ba- 
varia. Her brother William of Bavaria was0 
count of Hainault, lord of Holland, of Zealand, 
of Friesland and of nearly all the territory which 
now goes to make up the kingdom of the Nether- 
(115) 



1 16 HISTORIC B UBBLES 

lands. Now John having married William's 
sister Margaret, William to be even with him, 
turned round and married John's sister Margaret, 
Margaret of Valois, Margaret of Burgundy. 
These two princes having each married the 
other's sister Margaret, were thus double broth- 
ers-in-law; and this close relationship did not 
breed any dissention between them: it was 
otherwise with their children who were, you 
perceive, double cousins. John and his Marg- 
aret were blest with one son and seven daughters. 
William and his Margaret had but one child, a 
daughter whom they christened Jaqueline. This 
lady is called by so many different names in his- 
tory, that if you were not on your guard you 
might imagine there were half a dozen of them: 
Jaqueline of Bavaria, Jaqueline of Holland, 
Jaqueline of Hainault, Jaqueline of Brabant. 
Then the Dutch called her Jacoba; so some 
English writers affect to call her Jacoba, and ring 
the changes on it. But in spite of these mani- 
fold appellations she was but a sole and only 
child ; and as the salic law did not rule in the low 
countries, she was a great heiress. Her situation 
was a repetition of that of her grandmother 
Margaret of Flanders except that the provinces 
they inherited respectively were different. (See 
Second House of Burgundy.) 

The great expectations of Jaqueline entitled 



TWO JAQUELINES 117 

her to a distinguished husband, and when only 
five years old she was wedded to John of Tou~ 
raine second son of Charles VI. The marriage 
was celebrated with much splendor at Com- 
piegne, at the same time with that of prince 
John's cousin the count of Angouleme who es- 
poused Isabella, John's sister, widow of Richard 
11. of England who had been murdered at 
Pomfret. It is said that the joy of these double 
nuptials was saddened by the tears of Isabella 
who wept aloud at having to give up the title of 
queen. 

Not long after the marriage, John's elder 
brother the dauphin died, and John himself be- 
came dauphin. Behold then our little Jaqueline 
in a fair way to become queen of France ! But 
it was not to be: prince John died suddenly one 
day, and his death Hke all sudden death of ex- 
alted personages in those days, was attributed 
to poison. But the probability is that all the 
poison he took was what the doctors gave him in 
good faith, to cure him of a cold he had caught 
playing at tennis; and I may hold the case up to 
you as a warning either against tennis or the 
doctors as you prefer. 

Jaqueline was eleven years old when her hus- 
band died. The same year, 141 7, she lost also 
her father the count William. Thus from a great 
heiress she became a great potentate. She was 



1 1 8 HISTORIC B UBBLES 

of course too young to administer her own 
affairs; and they fell chiefly into the hand of her 
powerful uncle John-the-fearless. She was not 
only a great potentate but a styHsh young widow, 
the best match in the market; and great was the 
scramble for her hand. Not a single princely 
fortune hunter in Europe but was dying of love 
for her. 

After some years of widowhood, a family 
council was held, and it was determined that she 
should marry her cousin John duke of Brabant, 
son of Antony of Burgundy and Elizabeth of 
Luxembourg. Antony who was brother of 
John-the-fearless, had fallen at Agincourt. 
Jaquellne and the duke of Brabant being first 
cousins, a dispensation was of course necessary 
to their marriage; and they applied for one to 
the Roman pontiff Martin V. In the family 
council referred to, an active part had been taken 
by an uncle of Jaquellne on her father's side, 
namely John-the-pltlless, bishop of Liege, whom 
we have already introduced to you in our paper 
on the House of Burgundy. He had approved 
of the betrothal, and had joined in the application 
to the pope; but he was secretly resolved to leave 
no stone unturned to seize his dead brother's 
estates, the inheritance of Jaquellne; and indeed 
it is alleged that he was even manoeuvring to 
^spouse her himself. He despatched furtively a 



TWO JAQUELINES 119 

messenger to the pope praying him to withhold 
the dispensation, or to revoke it if already 
granted, pleading that he had just discovered a 
flaw in his brother's marriage with Margaret 
of Burgundy, that would render Jaqueline 
illegitimate. The dispensation was already 
on its way to Flanders; so the pontiff instantly 
put forth an annulment, and the one document 
arrived at the heels of the other. But when they 
came to unroll them they found that there was 
wanting to the revocation a bit of red tape and 
a leaden seal. In the great haste some func- 
tionary through whose hands it had passed, had 
neglected to attach those ornaments; and for the 
want of an ounce of lead, the annulment was 
of no weight, while the dispensation duly bal- 
lasted with that metal, was of force. The wed- 
ding party did not give the bishop time to have 
the error corrected, and the nuptials took place. 
The bishop immediately levied ban and 
arriere ban and invaded the provinces of his 
niece. It was a favorable moment for him. 
Holland was convulsed with civil strife between 
two factions called the Fishhooks and the Cod- 
fish. The latter sided with the bishop, and the 
fotmer with Jaqueline who flew in an un- 
daunted manner to the rescue of her patrimony. 
The duke of Burgundy sent to the seat of war his 
son afterwards Philip-the-good; and that prince 



1 20 HISTORIC B UBBLES 

compelled both parties to lay down their arms. 
The duke then thought to pacify the bishop by 
investing him with the revenues of certain of 
his niece's estates. 

John-the-pitiless was bishop by brevet only. 
He had taken no orders higher than those of dea- 
con, and therefore was not irrevocably a church- 
man. His plan to marry Jaqueline having failed, 
he fixed his eye on another bride. In order to 
carry out this fresh design upon the peace and 
tranquillity of the sex, he appealed to the pope 
for a decree of secularisation unfrocking him. 
The pope was compliant and the ex-bishop led 
to the altar, Elizabeth of Luxembourg relict of 
Anthony of Burgundy, mother of the duke of 
Brabant and mother-in-law of Jaqueline. 

Jaqueline had been so busy fighting her demi- 
reverend uncle who had just assumed a nearer 
and dearer relationship to her, that she had given 
herself no time to see what sort of a husband she 
had married. She now took a good look at 
him and found that he was a puny, misshapen 
invalid, while her looking-glass and her friends 
told her that she had grown up into a hand- 
some, wholesome, vigorous woman. They went 
to housekeeping however, and quarrelled like man 
and wife. One day while she was absent, her 
husband of Brabant took it upon him to dismiss 
all her Dutch hand-maidens, and send them bacli;. 



TWO /AQ UELINES 1 2 1 

bag and baggage, to Holland. The reason he 
gave for it was that they talked Dutch, a dialect 
he did not understand and did not commend. 
Jaqueline was not disposed to put up with this 
affront. She left him and went back to her 
mother who was residing at Valenciennes. She 
soon found life too dull there for a spirit as rest- 
less as hers, and planned an expedition to 
England. A retinue suitable to a princess of 
her rank was furnished her, and she crossed the 
channel. 

England was at that time ruled by Henry V. 
the second king of the house of Lancaster. His 
queen was Catharine of France daughter of 
Charles VI., and sister of Jaqueline 's first hus- 
band prince John. Catharine was therefore her 
sister-in-law and her cousin. Henry was also re- 
lated to her but more remotely through their com- 
mon descent from Charles of Valois. Henry and 
Catharine received Jaquehne with great distinc- 
tion, and invited her to stand godmother to their 
infant son afterwards the good and pious but un- 
fortunate Henry VI. 

In the family party assembled at the baptism, 
was the king's youngest brother Humphrey 
duke of Gloucester, called by historians and by 
Shakspeare, the good duke of Gloucester. He 
looked wistfully across the font at his blooming 
Dutch cousin ; and she, I am sorry to say, lookecj 



122 HISTORIC BUBBLES 

wistfully back at him. They fell in love and so 
desperately that they resolved that nothing 
should prevent their union, not even the crooked 
little duke of Brabant who was already the hus- 
band of Jaqueline. They applied to pope Mar- 
tin to annul that marriage ; and the pontiff usu- 
ally so compliant, was obstinate in his refusal. 
We shall see by and by what was the cause of 
his obstinacy. But he was not the only pope. 
These were still the days of the Great Schism: 
a pope at Rome, and a pope at Avignon. To 
such a degree however, had the Eternal City 
regained its prestige, that at the epoch of our 
story, the greater number of the powers of 
Europe, had renounced the obedience of Avig- 
non and gone over to that of Rome. Among the 
the first that had done so, were the houses of 
Plantagenet and Bavaria, the houses to which 
our two lovers belonged. But to them the true 
pope was the pope who would let them marry. 
They had failed before Martin V., so they ap- 
pealed from him to Benedict XIII. who sat in 
a kind of survival of grandeur on the throne of 
Avignon. Benedict, flattered that an English 
prince and a Flemish princess should abjure his 
rival and come over to him, granted a bull in due 
form annulling Jaqueline's marriage with the 
duke of Brabant, and anathematising Martin V. 
Gloucester and Jaqueline were immediatelv united. 



TWO JAQ UELINES 123 

Leaving them to enjoy the honey-moon, we 
will go back and take a rapid survey of the events 
which gave poHtical importance to their marri- 
age. 

One hot day in August 1392, Charles VI. had 
a sun-stroke and went crazy. The reins of 
government fell once more into the hands of his 
uncle Philip. (See House of Burgundy.) At 
the death of Philip a bitter contest for the suprem- 
acy broke out between his son John-the-fearless 
and Louis of Orleans, the king's brother. This 
rivalry led to a desultory civil war interrupted by 
truces and pacifications during one of which, 
John-the-fearless thought to settle the dispute 
once for all, by a touch of his fearlessness. He 
assassinated his rival in the streets of Paris. 

The stroke was to a great degree successful, 
and John duke of Burgundy was the greatest 
man in the realm. But the faction of Orleans 
though disorganised for the moment by the death 
of its chief, was not extinguished. The young 
duke son of the murdered man, had taken for his 
second wife the daughter of the count of Armag- 
nac an energetic leader who put himself at the 
head of the Orleansists, and even gave them his 
name; and France was torn by the bloody strife 
between the Burgundians and the Armagnacs. 

It was this state of things that tempted 
Henry V. of England to revive an absurd claim 



1 24 HISTORIC B UBBLES 

to the crown of France which had been trumped 
up as a pretext for plunder, by his great grand- 
father Edward III. Henry invaded France and 
won the battle of Agincourt. Both factions 
courted his alliance, each being more anxious to 
wreak vengeance on the other than to save their 
common country. Henry after some coquett- 
ing, sided with the Burgundians who were the 
stronger of the two, and held the north of France 
including the capital which they put into his 
hands. In that city he afterwards married 
Catharine daughter of Charles and Isabella, and 
was declared heir of the monarchy, in contempt 
of the rights of Catharine's young brother the 
dauphin Charles. The demented king and his 
disreputable queen deserted the cause of their 
son and of France, and went over to the Eng- 
lish. The dauphin himself was rescued from the 
clutches of his father and mother, by a bold stroke 
of Tanneguy du Chatel an Armagnac noble who 
broke into the boy's lodging one night, 
snatched him out of bed, wrapped him up in his 
cloak, mounted his horse with him, and made 
good his escape; and Charles lived to recover 
his inheritance and more besides. The Armag- 
nac faction thus became the party of the dauphin, 
the party of the nation and of the independence 
of France. 
There were among the Burgundian barons 



TIVO JAQUELINES 125 

some who remembered they were Frenchmen 
and who fought reluctantly on the side of Eng- 
land. These projected an interview between 
the dauphin and duke John, with a view of recon- 
ciling their differences, and uniting their arms 
against the common enemy. The meeting took 
place on the bridge of Montereau, and John-the- 
fearless was struck dead at the feet of the young 
prince. Thus did one foul murder avenge 
another murder equally foul committed twelve 
years before. 

Some English writers inform you that John- 
the-fearless was assassinated by orders of the 
dauphin. Charles at that time was an indolent 
boy of sixteen; and he probably was not allowed 
to know that such an act was meditated. Indeed 
so impolitic was the murder that it is far from 
certain that there was any premeditation about 
it. It is much more likely that duke John fell 
a victim to a sudden outbreak of revenge on 
the part of nobles he had long pursued. 

His son and successor Philip was in his twenty- 
third year. He is called in history Philip-the- 
good for reasons perhaps as satisfactory as in 
the case of his great grandfather king John II. 
He was good tempered however, and whenever 
his domestic servitors, his equerries and his cham- 
berlains came to talk with him about household 
matters he received them affably instead of kick- 



126 HISTORIC B UBBLES 

ing them on the shins with his jack-boots as his 
sire had done, and as was indeed the style in those 
days. 

Philip had married Charles's sister Michelle 
of France; but he eagerly adopted the theory 
of his English counsellors, that Charles was the 
assassin; and he went home and exclaimed O 
Michelle your brother has murdered my father! 
The poor princess threw herself into his arms and 
declared that his enemies were her enemies, and 
the tragedy worked no breach between them. 

But Philip thought of nothing but revenge. 
He sent an envoy to the English king offering 
a formal alliance with him for the destruction of 
the French monarchy. The astonishing treaty 
as Hume calls it, by which this prince of the blood 
royal of France declared himself the enemy of 
his family, of his country and of that throne to 
which he was so nearly related that in the chap- 
ter of chances he might become its heir, is called 
the treaty of Troyes from Troyes in Champagne 
where it was signed.* 

It was about the time of this treaty that the 
English court was set agog by the flirtation be- 
tween Jaqueline and the duke of Gloucester, 
and by the appHcation they were making to both 

♦Had the male line of Burgundy survived, it would 
have inherited the crown instead of the House of 
Bourbon. 



TIVO JAQUELINES 127 

popes to open the way to their marriage Noth- 
ing could be more threatening to the House of 
Burgundy than that an English prince should 
acquire Holland and the other provinces that 
had fallen to Jaqueline ; and duke Philip, not- 
withstanding his alliance with Henry, interfered 
vigorously and successfully to prevent pope 
Martin from annulling the previous marriage of 
Jaqueline. When the annulment v/as finally ob- 
tained from Benedict, Philip appealed to Henry 
himself to stop the espousals by his royal author- 
ity. But Henry was quite willing his brother 
should win so great a prize. There was to be 
sure, hazard in it; but he trusted to his own ad- 
dress to keep Philip quiet, and allowed the 
marriage to take place. Nor did he trust in vain. 
That gifted monarch had sounded the depths 
and the shallows of his ally. He knew that 
Philip was the most pig-headed of mortals; and 
that he would submit to still greater humiliations 
rather than give up his schemes of vengeance. 
Up to this time the arms of England had been 
successful; but they now met with a reverse the 
consequences of which were far-reaching; though 
English historians affect either to ignore the 
transaction, or to refer to it as an affair of no im- 
portance. Henry had gone back to England, 
leaving his victorious army under the command 
of his brother Thomas duke of Clarence. Thomas 



128 HISTORIC B UBBLES 

could not forgive himself for not having been 
at Agincourt on that day of glory; and he re- 
solved to have an Agincourt of his own. The 
French under the Marshal de Lafayette — an 
ancestor of our own Lafayette — were in a strong 
position at Beauge. A Httle way off lay a body 
of Scotch under the earl of Buchan, ready to 
second the French; but the EngHsh despised the 
Scotch even more than they did the French, for 
they had beaten them oftener and at greater 
odds.* 

Clarence did not hesitate to attack the French 
position. He was received with steadiness; 
and at the critical moment Buchan and his red- 
headed crew bore down upon the field. Clar- 
ence was slain, and his army defeated. 

Henry whose opinion of the disaster was dif- 
ferent from that of the English historians, flew 
back to France, and in the most obstinate of 
all his campaigns, succeeded in winning back 
the ground that had been lost. But that cam- 
paign which the defeat of Beauge alone had 
rendered necessary, was fatal to him. Worn out 
with care, fatigue and exposure he lay dying at 
Vincennes. 



*This low opinion of Scotch valor was still rife in 
Shakspeare's time. The poet in describing the lovers 
of Portia, makes the German a drunkard, the French- 
man a montebank and the Scotchman a coward. 



TWO JAQUELINES 129 

He called to him his next brother John duke 
of Bedford, appointed him regent of France, and 
enjoined upon him always to preserve the friend- 
ship and alliance of the duke of Burgundy, as 
essential to the conquest of the kingdom. He 
constituted his brother Humphrey regent of 
England, and adjured him never to leave that 
island while the war lasted. These two injunc- 
tions had the same drift, and showed what was 
weighing upon Henry's mind. He had been 
confident of his own power to obviate the mis- 
chief threatened by the EngHsh marriage of 
Jaqueline, but he was not sure his brothers would 
be equal to it; and the apprehension was not ill 
founded. 

The monarch died and was embalmed and 
sent to England. He was perhaps the greatest 
of England's kings. His chief faults were cruelty 
and arrogance, and they both stood in his way. 
Assuming to be king of France he regarded as 
a traitor worthy of death every Frenchman who 
resisted him. This theory drove the French into 
that tenacious defence of their towns which 
checked his progress; and at the same time his 
haughty airs alienated the Burgundian nobles. 
Dare you loc^ me in the face when you speak 
to me? said he to L'isle Adam, Philip's governor 
of Paris. Sire, rephed the Burgundian, there 
9 



130 



HISTORIC BUBBLES 



lives not the man that I look not in the face when 
I speak to him. 

A few weeks after Henry's death, his poor crazy 
father-in-law Charles VI. was laid beside his 
ancestors in the abbey of Saint Denis. Not a 
single prince of the House of Valois followed 
him to his grave. Not a single prince of any 
blood save the duke of Bedford alone who con- 
ducted the obsequies. As they turned away from 
his tomb, the good monks of the abbey who had 
sung the requiem, fell into a dispute with the 
servants of the king's household about the pos- 
session of some ornaments that had been used 
in the funeral. From words they come to 
blows, and the battle waxed so fierce that Bed- 
ford and his suite were fain to turn back and strike 
right and left to quell the tumult. 

Henry instead of naming one of his brothers 
guardian and governor of his infant son now 
king, had conferred that office on his uncle the 
bishop of Winchester."^ That bishop is the 
Cardinal Beaufort of Shakspeare; and we shall 
now call him by that name though pope Martin 
had not yet sent him the red hat. These Beau- 
forts were the natural children of John of Gaunt 



* Green calls this prelate sometimes bishop of Win- 
chester and sometimes bishop of Chichester. He was 
so swept along by his own rhetoric that he forgot men's 
names like the Bastard in King John. 



TWO JAQUELINES 131 

and Catharine Swinford.^ In the reign of Rich- 
ard II. John's nephew, they had been legiti- 
mated; but when John's son Henry usurped the 
throne, he was fearful of the ambition of his 
half brothers and caused his parliament to 
modify the legitimation so far as to exclude them 
from the throne. The exclusion was futile: the 
line of Beaufort reigns over England at this 
present moment, while that of Henry is extinct. 

Cardinal Beaufort possessed great abilities 
but an imperious temper. He and his nephew 
of Gloucester Jaqueline's husband were rivals, 
the one being regent of the king, the other of 
the kingdom; and this rivalry soon lapsed into 
a hatred so bitter that they sought only to destroy 
each other. 

The cardinal had raised six thousand men to 
reinforce Bedford, when Gloucester, exercising 
his prerogative of regent, assumed the command 
of them. Then in spite of Henry's dying injunc- 
tion that he should not leave England, he took 
Jaqueline with him and at the head of those 
troops, landed at Calais. Instead of going south 
to join Bedford as he had promised, he marched 
east across the territories of the duke of Bur- 
gundy without his permission, and entered upon 
the provinces of Jaqueline. At their coming the 
war of the Codfish and the Fishhooks broke out 
afresh. He and Jaqueline sided with the Fish- 



132 HISTORIC B UBBLES 

hooks which gave the Hooks a temporary superi- 
ority. 

Philip behaved with signal imbecility. In- 
stead of withdrawing his contingent from France, 
and using it to drive Gloucester out, he expos- 
tulated with Bedford concerning the invasion, 
and clamored for the withdrawal of the English 
troops. Most gladly would Bedford have with- 
drawn them, for he needed them himself; but 
Gloucester was not subject to his authority, and 
would not listen to him. Philip at last woke 
up to what everybody else saw, that he was in the 
predicament of fighting for the English in France 
and against them in the Netherlands. He levied a 
fresh army, took the command in person, and 
marched toward Holland. 

When Gloucester heard of these preparations, 
he wrote Philip a wheedling letter saying that 
he had come to the continent solely in the interest 
of Philip and of Philip's dear double cousin 
Jaqueline; and he called Heaven to witness to 
the purity of his intentions. Philip told him he 
was a har; Gloucester told Philip he was another. 
Philip in] mediately challenged him to mortal 
combat, declaring that by the help of God and 
of God's Virgin Mother our Lady, he would 
convince him of his error by running him through 
the body. Gloucester accepted the challenge, 
vowing to put Philip to death in the name of 



TPVO JAQUELINES 133 

God, of our Lady and of Monseigneur Saint 
George. The duke of Bedford and cardinal Beau- 
fort interfered and persuaded these two bluster- 
ers to leave the matter out to a council of doctors 
of law and theology at Paris. These phil- 
osophers arrived at the verdict that the two 
challengers had come out so even in the mis- 
sives they had discharged at each other that 
further duelling was superfluous; and so it ended. 

Philip entered Holland at the head of his 
army. The Codfish joined him, not that they 
preferred him to their lawful suzerain Jaqueline, 
but because those worthless Fishhooks had 
adhered to the other side. 

At this critical moment Gloucester went back 
to England, leaving Jaqueline to see to her own 
afi'airs as best she might. He was called home 
he said, by the untoward proceedings of his uncle 
the cardinal. He sent to Jaqueline however, 
a reenforcement of three thousand men. The 
two armies met at Browershaven where after a 
day of carnage in which Englishman and French- 
man, Fleming and Burgundian, Codfish and 
Fishhook fell indiscriminately, the star of Philip 
prevailed. He was not a great general; but in 
the hour of combat he was an active and intrepid, 
soldier. 

Not wholly crushed by this defeat, Jaqueline 
donned her armor and took the field in person, 



1 34 HISTORIC B UBBLES 

and in more than one bloody conflict behaved 
with the steadiness of a veteran. But there was 
no repairing the disaster of Browershaven, and 
her fortunes sank. She wrote imploringly to 
Gloucester to come back to her. One of her 
letters full of affection, still exists. But they 
never met again. The good Humphrey had 
fallen in with a handsome English girl named 
Eleanor Cobham, and had become more inti- 
mate with her than comported with his duty to 
his Dutch wife. 

Philip by the success of his arms and by this 
infidelity of Gloucester, became master of the 
fate of Jaqueline. He prayed pope Martin to 
annul her English marriage and to reinstate the 
one with the duke of Brabant. Martin con- 
sented and put forth a bull accordingly; and as 
the English marriage had been sanctioned and 
blessed by his Avignon rival, he let fly at him an 
anathema so comprehensive that it is doubtful 
whether he has yet been able, even after the 
lapse of five centuries, to dodge all its pro- 
visions. 

As there was reason to fear that Jaqueline still 
loved her truant Humphrey, the bull in ques- 
tion decreed that if she again espoused him, even 
after the death of Brabant, she would be guilty 
of adultery. This at first seems illogical; but 
the Church is never illogical: admit her premises 



TWO JAQ UELINES 135 

and you are swept to her conclusions. Let us 
see: According to the Church, if a woman marries 
again having a previous husband Uving, she com- 
mits adultery. If JaqueHne after the death of 
Brabant, should marry Gloucester, she vv^ould 
marry again, having a previous husband living. 
If you should ask who that previous husband 
would be, I answer the duke of Gloucester. 

At all events, this syllogism was so convincing 
to Gloucester himself, that Hke a submissive 
son of the Church, he turned round and married 
his mistress Eleanor Cobham. 

Nemesis followed up that marriage, and 
JaqueHne was avenged. A few years later, the 
duchess Eleanor was arraigned for witchcraft 
and made to do pubHc penance at Saint Pauls. 
Humphrey was impHcated in his wife's sorceries ; 
but it would not answer to make a prince of the 
blood do penance at Saint Pauls, so he was found 
one morning, dead in his bed. 

As for his murderer, stop here O reader! 
turn to your Shakspeare, Henry VI. part II. 
act III. scene III.; and stand at the bedside of 
the dying cardinal — that scene of which Doctor 
Johnson says "the profound can imagine noth- 
ing beyond" — that scene of which Schlegel says 
**it is beyond praise; no other poet has ever drawn 
aside the curtain of eternity in so awful a man- 
ners—that scene which John Richard Green 



1 36 HISTORIC B UBBLES 

says "is taken bodily from some older dramat- 
ist!"* 

The annulment of Jaqueline's English mar- 
riage, threw her back into the arms of the duke 
of Brabant who however, did not long enjoy the 
wife thus restored to him. He died, and his 
estates fell to his brother Philip who died soon 
after, and so suddenly that PhiHp of Burgundy 
who was, or rather claimed to be the next heir, 
was suspected of having poisoned him. But the 
fifteenth century had fairly set in, and knowledge 
had revived. Two intelligent surgeons cut 
open the dead Philip, to see what ailed him, and 
found in his stomach an ulcer which sufficiently 
explained his demise, so that Philip-the-good 
escaped passing into history as a poisoner. 

Jaqueline was reduced to extremities. Philip 
had cornered her up in Zealand, and set to watch 
over her a lieutenant of his named Philip Borssele 
who had risen in his service by his business 
talents. JaqueHne the inheritor of some of the 
richest provinces in Europe, was so straitened 
that she had not money enough to defray her 



*Maloue whose researches had been standard author- 
ity fifty years when Green wrote, says that two lines 
only of that incomparable scene were thus taken. But 
let us be just to Green; his incapacity to discern the 
touch of Shakspeare, and his inadequate knowledge of 
Shaksperean literature, are aitcr all, aniontj the least 
defects of his histories. 



TWO JAQUELINES 137 

housekeeping-. One day her mother had sent 
her a present of a span of horses, and she could 
not find a single florin in her purse to give as 
drink-money to the grooms who had brought 
them. One of her attendants suggested to her 
to apply to Borssele who always had money to 
lend. She spurned the thought of being be- 
holden to that low-born myrmidon of her hated 
cousin. But finally her necessities prevailed. 
She sent to Borssele to borrow a small sum. He 
not only lent it to her but told her he had more 
at her disposal. Jaqueline was mollified: we 
are all molliiied with a Httle money and the 
promise of more. She made up her mind he 
was not a myrmidon after all but an honest fellow. 
She admitted him to her presence. Borssele 
was handsome and graceful; and she did not 
frown upon him. He took a pliant hour, and 
though he had never read Othello, he told his 
tale of love as eloquently as the Moor. They 
were privately married. 

When Philip-the-good heard of this fresh 
escapade of his double cousin, he flew into a 
towering passion — or at least, pretended to do so. 
He stamped and stormed. That Jaqueline of 
Bavaria, duchess of Brabant, daughter of Bur- 
gundy and of France, should stoop to the hand 
of Philip Borssele! So he seized the bridegroom 
and shut him up in the castle of Rupelmonde; 



138 HISTORIC B UBBLES 

and thus was Jaqueline deprived of her fourth 
husband. 

But there is reason to believe that Philip-the- 
good was putting on airs, and that he was secretly 
glad of the advantage which Jaqueline's impru- 
dence had given him over her. She had never 
ceded her estates to him by any formal act: he 
held them as a brigand holds his prey; but now 
he brought her to surrender to him her whole 
patrimony as the ransom of her husband. Bors- 
sele was set free, and in order to raise him to a 
rank a little more commensurate with that of 
his wife, PhiHp created him count of Ostravant, 
and conferred upon him the collar of the Golden 
Fleece, an order of chivalry which Philip him- 
self had established as a rival to the English 
order of the Garter; and he settled upon the 
newly married pair a part of the revenues of 
Ostravant, so that his double cousin and cousin- 
in-law might not starve.* 

We know but little of the remaining years of 
Jaqueline's life. We hope they were more tran- 
quil than those we have recounted. She ^ed in 
1436, at the age of thirty-five, leaving no issue. 

The domains which she had inherited formed 



* The order of the Golden Fleece is still extant. The 
emperor of Austria and the king of Spain, both descend- 
ants of Philip, share between them the Grandmastership 
of the order. 



TWO JAQ UELINES 139 

technically a part of the Empire Holy and 
Roman; and at her death the emperor Sigisnumd 
claimed that they had escheated to him. The 
claim was in accordance with feudal law, but 
Philip was already in possession and was too 
powerful to be dislodged. Thus did the provinces 
of Jaqueline go to swell the dominion of the 
House of Burgundy — that house whose fate it 
was never to decline after the manner of empires, 
but to grow in power and splendor under each 
succeeding duke until the day when Charles-the- 
rash, son of Philip, should stretch forth his hand 
to a regal diadem ; and then the storm came which 
swept away both duke and dominion. 



The same year that Jaqueline of Bavaria mar- 
ried Philip Borssele, Jaqueline of Luxembourg 
married the duke of Bedford. 

But to introduce our second Jaqueline with due 
ceremony we must go back ten years; and I 
promise not to be so long as that in fetching up 
the arrears of my story. 

After the death of Henry V. his brother of 
Bedford was at first desirous to obey the injunc- 
tion of the dying king, to keep on good terms 
with the duke of Burgundy. There had been 
love passages, ardent no doubt, but still diplo- 
matic only between Bedford and Anne of Bur- 



I40 HISTORIC B UBBLES 

gnndy Philip's sister, a comely maiden ot eigh- 
teen. Bedford pressed his suit and was accepted, 
and Anne made him a good wife, at least in a 
political sense, for her kind offices were often 
required to keep peace between her arrogant 
husband and her obstinate brother. 

Bedford was endowed with all the haughtiness 
of his brother Henry without his genius; and he 
afl'ected to treat Philip as his inferior which he 
certainly was not. The House of Valois de- 
scended in direct male line from Hugh Capet, 
had nothing to yield to the House of Plantagenet 
whose highest male descent was from the counts 
of Anjou vassals of the line of Capet. Besides, 
duke Philip was an hereditary sovereign, wliile 
duke John of Bedford was only regent of a king- 
dom not yet achieved, and not destined to be 
achieved. 

On one occasion, in the presence of both 
English and Burgundian nobles, Bedford so far 
forgot himself as to threaten that if his brother 
Philip did not behave, he would send him to 
England to drink more beer than he liked. This 
was a gross affront. Philip had been brought 
up on the delicious wines of his native Burgundy; 
and he detested beer. But the good duchess 
Anne interposed and persuaded her husband 
not to make her brother drink beer, and peace 
was maintained 



TWO JAQ UELINES 141 

After nine years of married life Anne died. 
This event might not have dissolved the alliance 
between the two powers, had not Bedford con- 
ducted himself with a wanton disregard to 
Philip's sensibilities. Among the vassals of the 
House of Burgundy the most illustrious was 
a branch of that of Luxembourg ; and the gentle- 
men of that house were among the most ardent 
partisans of the English cause. It was John of 
Luxembourg into whose hands the maid of 
Orleans had fallen after her capture at Com- 
piegne. John took her to his castle of Beaure- 
voir where she was received with kindness by 
the ladies of his house, especially by his young 
niece Jaqueline of Saint Pol, or of Luxembourg. 

The high rank and eminent services of this 
family had brought them into social relations with 
the regent Bedford; and Anne of Burgundy was 
no sooner in her grave than he ofifered his hand 
to Jaqueline. And so promptly did they des- 
patch the business that it might be said of that 
as of another occasion well known to you, that 
the funeral baked meats did coldly furnish forth 
the marriage tables. 

Jaqueline of Luxembourg was Philip's vassal, 
and by feudal law, had no right to marry without 
his consent, but he was not even consulted. This 
disrespect to the memory of his dead sister, and 
contempt of his own authority exhausted his 



1 4 2 HIS TORIC B UBBLES 

patience. He had long had his head broken at 
home over his EngHsh alhance. His eldest 
sister had married Arthur of Brittany, count of 
Richmont, Constable of France. His next sister 
was the wife of the count of Clermont afterwards 
duke of Bourbon. Both these gentlemen were 
partisans of king Charles. Philip who as we 
have said, was good-tempered, had kept on 
friendly terms with his sisters, though their hus- 
bands would now and then burst into his terri- 
tories and lay them waste; and he now em* 
powered those fighting brothers-in-law to open 
negotiations in his name with the king. 

Cardinal Beaufort — we have anticipated in 
referring to his death-bed — Cardinal Beaufort 
made a strenuous effort to turn aside the peril. 
He induced Philip and Bedford to agree to a 
personal interview, and they went to Saint Omer 
for that purpose. But a question of precedence 
arose: neither of them would pay the other the 
first visit. In vain did the cardinal represent to 
Bedford that it was he who had given the cause 
of ofTence, and it was he who had everything to 
lose by the rupture. The self-willed Plantagenet 
would concede nothing. The cardinal then tried 
Philip, calling him his dear nephew.* But the 



* Philip's third wife was Isabella of Portugal, grand- 
daughter of John of Gaunt, and therefore niece of 
the cardinal and cousin of Bedford. Isabella was the 



T WO J A Q UE LINES 1 43 

Burgundian's blood was up and he was as in- 
tractable as the Englishman. vSo the two princes 
left St. Omer without seeing each other. 

The envoys of the king of France and of the 
duke of Burgundy met in the church of Saint 
Vaast in the town of Arras. Cardinal Beaufort 
took part in the conference on behalf of Eng- 
land; and the cardinal of Santa Croce on the part 
of the Roman pontiff. In an eloquent speech 
Beaufort pleaded in the name of that Church of 
which he was a prince, that Philip could 
renounce his ahiance with England only at the 
cost of his salvation. He had taken an oath, 
and if he broke that oath his soul was lost. On 
the contrary the cardinal of Santa Croce main- 
tained that PhiHp's first and greatest sublunary 
duty was to his liege lord king Charles, and if he 
were recreant to that duty he would be damned. 
And to prove that it was he and not the English 
cardinal who spoke by the authority of the 
Church, he wrought a miracle on the spot. They 
brought to him a consecrated wafer — the bread 
that the hand of the priest had transformed into 
the very substance of the Omnipotent. He 
cursed it, and it turned black; he blessed it and 
it turned white again. 

mother of Charles-the-rash, and it is thus that the Haps- 
burgs and the Bourbons trace descent from the Planta- 
genets. 



1 44 HISTORIC B UBBLES 

This was beyond gainsaying. Beaufort with- 
drew; and the treaty of Arras was signed, in 
which Philip dictated nearly his own terms. 
Among other concessions Charles agreed to 
build an expiatory chapel at Montereau where 
John-the-fearless had been murdered, and to 
maintain there daily lov/ mass for the repose of 
his soul. Not a word about John's victim the 
equally murdered Louis of Orleans the king's 
uncle. His soul was left to shift for itself with- 
out diplomatic succor. Time once more vindi- 
cated its reputation for putting things to rights. 
Before the century was out the generation of 
Charles VII. was extinct ; and that of the neg- 
lected Louis mounted the throne and sat there 
till the end.* 

The defection of the duke of Burgundy re- 
sulted as Henry V. had foreseen: it rendered 
hopeless the Plantagenet cause in France. But 
indeed the tide had already turned, and the rem- 
nant of the kingdom left to Charles VII. had 
suddenly shown itself a match for its enemies. 
The superstitious spirit of the age attributed this 
change to the direct interposition of Providence 
in the advent and career of Jeanne Dare the 



* Louis XII. was grandson of Louis of Valentina. 
Their great-grand daughter Margaret of Valois was 
grand-mother of Henry IV. from whom have descended 
all the branches of the House of Bourbon. 



T WO J A Q UELINES 1 45 

famous Maid of Orleans; and the English have 
seemed willing to leave this coloring upon it in 
order to throw a mist over some of the most 
unfortunate passages of their military history. 
The true explanation like most true explana- 
tions, is simple enough. There had sprung up 
around the falling throne of Charles an array of 
military talent not equalled elsewhere. Charles 
VII. was not a great king, but so fortunate was 
he in making use of the greatness of others that 
he gained the name of Charles-the-well-served. 
Foremost among those to whom he owed that 
title, was his cousin the count Dunois called in 
the early part of his career and in Shakspeare, 
the Bastard of Orleans. 

So little can be gathered in English histories 
concerning this great man, that I will say a word 
more about him. Louis of Orleans, the husband 
of Valentina, was not true to her. An intrigue 
with the wife of the lord of Canny, resulted in 
the birth of a boy. Why the mother did not take 
charge of her offspring I do not know; but it is 
certain that Valentina herself adopted this by- 
blow of her husband, and brought him up with 
her own little brood. It is even said that he was 
her favorite among them, from his singular wit 
and spirit. After having tried many years in 
vain to bring the lordly assassin of her husband 
to justice, Valentina lay on her death-bed. She 
10 



1 46 HISTORIC B UBBLES 

called her children to her side; she called too him 
who was not her child, but whom she loved as 
well; and she told him that he above them all was 
chosen to be the avenger of his father. But 
Heaven had marked out for him a higher role 
than to avenge an unworthy sire. It was he who 
was ever at the side of the Maid of Orleans eking 
out her inspiration with his own, and at times 
setting aside the mandates she received from 
above, in favor of the suggestions of his own 
genius; and then with true magnanimity ascrib- 
ing to her all the glory of the success. 

After the capture of the Maid, the renown 
of Dunois, no longer obscured by the cloud of 
superstition in which he himself had been will- 
ing to envelop it, shone forth with its proper 
splendor. 

Bedford, after having hacked the spurs ofif the 
heels of one of lys bravest captains, because he 
had lost the battle of Patay, took the field him- 
self against Dunois; and at Lagni was forced to 
abandon to him his cannon and his baggage. 
Subseqently Dunois was made lieutenant gen- 
eral of France. 

The hundred years war ended by the dismem- 
berment not of the French empire but of the 
English. The vast continental domains of the 
Plantagenets, the inheritance of Eleanor of Aqui- 
taine, containing nearly one-third of France, 



T WO J A Q UELINES 147 

which they had held three centuries — as long 
indeed as they had held the throne of England — 
were all conquered and annexed to the French 
crown. Nothing remained but the town of 
Calais which however was not a part of Eleanor's 
patrimony. 

This was the severest blow England ever re- 
ceived: it reduced her to a second class power, 
and left to her kings hardly more territory than 
they had inherited from their Saxon predecessors. 
In treating of this great war, English historians 
with some exceptions, strive to make nothing 
conspicuous but English victories; and the 
thoughtful reader is puzzled at the result, if 
indeed the result is disclosed to him. Well, 
let him admire the patriotism of the English 
writers and look elsewhere. 

But the Jaquelines! We have tried to explain 
how they were a cause, albeit a minor one, of this 
outcome, by the dissention which the love affairs 
of both fomented between the Plantagenets and 
the Burgundian Valois. A major cause was the 
soldiership of Dunois and his companions in 
arms.* 

Three years after his marriage with Jaqueline 



* Dunois took his title, count of Dunois, from an es- 
tate given him by his half-brother the duke of Orleans, 
one of those who had stood by his side at the dying bed 
of Valentina, 



148 HISTORIC BUBBLES 

of Luxembourg, the duke of Bedford, worn out 
like his brother Henry, with care and toil, died 
at Rouen, leaving his widow childless. Her 
further history demands that we go back two 
years. 

Near the town of Beauvais there was a dilapi- 
dated castle called Gerberoy. In the neighbor- 
hood were hovering La Hire and Saintrailles two 
of the hardest fighters in the service of king 
Charles. Bedford feared that these gentlemen 
might seize Gerberoy and make it tenable, so he 
despatched one of his captains the earl of Arun- 
del to intercept them. Arundel was approach- 
ing Gerberoy without having discovered any 
signs of the enemy; and there was apparently 
nothing to apprehend from a ruinous old strong- 
hold which could not contain half as many men 
as he had at his back. Nevertheless like a pru- 
dent general he sent forward Sir Ralph Standish 
with a hundred men to reconnoitre. Sir Ralph 
arrived under the walls, and observing a soldier 
on the parapet, summoned him to surrender. 
The soldier answered with a gibe, and the next 
moment Sir Ralph and his hundred men were 
flying for their lives. La Hire and Saintrailles 
had thrown themselves into the place in the night 
with a corps of picked men. Not content with 
putting to flight Sir Ralph, they instantly fell 
upon the main body of the English which 



TIVO J A Q UELINES 149 

according to Hume, was five times their num- 
ber. Arundel was slain and his detachment 
routed. 

Among the prisoners taken, was an English 
knight named Richard Woodville, and it is on 
this occasion, I believe, that he makes his debut 
on the page of history. He had fought with blind 
and misdirected valor in the battle, and so had 
other knights whose names have not come down 
to us. His name would not have spanned such 
a distance had it not been his fate to become the 
father of the long line of kings referred to in the 
beginning of this essay; nor is that the only 
royal line that traces descent from him. 

He soon recovered his liberty and entered the 
personal service of the duke of Bedford as a sort 
of staff officer, and had frequent occasions to 
admire the charming duchess. After Bedford's 
death Sir Richard ventured to lift his eyes to 
the widowed Jaqueline. Like Borssele he was 
handsome; and Jaqueline of Luxembourg took 
a leaf out of the book of Jaqueline of Bavaria, 
and became the bride of Sir Richard Wood- 
ville. 

Their daughter was that EHzabeth Woodville, 
lady Grey who came and knelt before Edward 
IV. and prayed that he would lift from her and 
her children the attainder that had fallen upon 
them because her husband had perished at Saint 



I50 ^ HISTORIC BUBBLES 

Albans, fighting for the House of Lancaster. 
Edward granted her prayer, fell in love with her 
and married her. Their daughter was Elizabeth 
Plantagenet who become the queen of Henry 
VH. 

One more love story is needed to complete 
the mosaic. Catharine of France widow of 
Henry V., became enamoured of what one Eng- 
lish hist-orian calls "an obscure Welch gentle- 
man named Owen Tudor." This was the gravest 
misalliance of all. Catharine of Valois, daughter 
of a king, sister of a king, widow of a king, mother 
of a king, stooped to be the wife of an obscure 
country gentleman. Their son Edmund Tudor, 
married Margaret Beaufort of the Beaufort 
family already mentioned. The son of Edmund 
Tudor and Margaret Beaufort was Henry earl 
of Richmond who seized the crown as the prize 
of his victory at Bosworth, and then strengthened 
his claim to it by marrying^ Elizabeth Planta- 
genet, Elizabeth of York, daughter of Edward 
IV. and grand daughter of JaqueHne. 

Thus did the blood of Beaufort come to the 
throne; and thus were Jaqueline of Luxembourg 
and her true knight the progenitors of the 
line which Macbeth said would stretch out to 
the crack of doom. 



TIVO J A Q UELINES 151 

VALOIS, BURGUNDY, HAPSBURG, 
BOURBON. 

(The italics mark the Hne of descent.) 

Charles-le-temeraire^ Charles-the-rash, miscalled 
by the English, Charles-the-bold, was the last 
Valois duke of Burgundy. He left an only 
child Mary of Burgundy who married Maxi- 
millian of Hapsburg, afterward emperor. Their 
son was the Archduke PJiilip who is counted as 
Philip the first of Spain though he never reigned. 
Philip married Joa7ina daughter of Ferditiand 
and Isabella^ and sister of Catharine of Aragon 
wife of Henry VHI. The son of Philip and 
Joanna was the great emperor Charles-the-fifih 
who was Charles the first of Spain. The crown 
of Spain then fell from father to son, to Philip 
II., Philip IIP, Philip IV. and Charles \\. where 
the male line of the elder branch of Hapsburg 
ended. The crown then fell to Philip V. (Bour- 
bon), grandson of Louis XIV. and Maria Teresa 
eldest daughter of Philip IV. 

The younger, the Austrian branch of the House 
of Hapsburg, is descended from the emperor 
Ferdinand brother of Charles-the-fifth. 



Hoche 



JWl ANY years ago I knew a Frenchman whose 
^^ ^ father a captain of infantry, had been 
killed in La Vendee fighting under Hoche. He 
had many things to tell me about Hoche which 
interested me in his career, and led me to 
treasure up in my memory whatever I came 
across afterwards concerning him. 

There was a certain confidential air about the 
communications of my French friend, which 
leads me to say to the reader that I trust to his 
honor not to divulge what I say to him touching 
the warrior in question. 

The French themselves hold that next to 
Napoleon Bonaparte, the most brilliant soldier 
thrown to the surface by the revolution, was 
Lazarus Hoche. This seems too to be the opin- 
ion of a writer in the Encylopedia Brittanica 
who says that the death of Hoche deprived the 
French people of the only man capable of mak- 
ing head against the ambition of the Corsican. 
And it still adds force to that view to bear in 
mind how short a time was allotted him to win 
immortality : he never lived to be thirty. In- 
(152) 



HOCHE ,153 

deed I remember but one general m history who 
died so young with so high a reputation; and 
that was that wondrous boy Gaston de Foix 
nephew of Louis XIL, who fell at the age of 
twenty-three at Ravenna after having there as 
elsewhere totally overthrown the famous Span- 
ish infantry. 

Perhaps some honest reader still callow from 
the study of John Richard Green, may remind 
me that that unique historian not only makes 
the Spanish infantry triumphant at Ravenna, but 
cites it as their typical exploit. "VVdl, we must 
be thankful that Mr. Green does not cite the 
Caudine Forks as the typical exploit of the 
Roman legions. 

Lazarus Hoche was born near Versailles in 
June 1768. He was the son, not of a common 
workman as some of the encyclopedias do vainly 
talk, but of a common soldier, or rather of an 
uncommon soldier; for his father on account 
of his uncommonness, was taken from the line 
and made keeper of the royal kennels at Ver- 
sailles; and the first useful occupation of the boy, 
if useful it were, was to help his father in the care 
of the king's hounds. 

Nature had endowed him with a handsome 
and vigorous body and a precocious intellect. 
He had a maternal uncle who was cure of Saint 
Germain-en-laye and a man of some learning. 



1 5 4 HISTORIC B UBBLES 

Phis good priest interested himself in the educa- 
tion of his clever nephew, and taught him the 
elements of latin and mathematics; and thus 
he received instruction beyond what was common 
in his station in life. And you academical 
gentlemen will insist I suppose, that his subse- 
quent advancement was all owing to this latin 
and mathematics. 

But his instincts were military and he resolved 
to be a soldier, and with a, boyish longing at the 
same time, to see the world, he enlisted when 
he was sixteen in what he supposed to be a regi- 
ment bound for the Indies; but his friends had 
played a trick on him, and he found himself en- 
rolled in a home regiment. He made the best 
of it however, and soon attracted the attention of 
his superiors by his prompt and intelligent obser- 
vance of duty. 

But there were some exceptions to his good 
behavior. On one occasion a soldier of his regi- 
ment had been killed in a pot-house brawl. 
Hoche joined with some of his comrades in raz- 
ing to the ground the house of the assassin. For 
his share in this riot he was condemned to three 
months imprisonment. Another act of violence 
which cost the life of a fellow being, brought him 
no punishment whatever, as it was within the 
tolerance of the service. A corporal was noted 
for his skill in handling the sabre. He had 



HOCHE 155 

already slain two opponents in his duels. He 
insulted Hoche who instantly challenged him. 
Hoche received a cut across the forehead, 
which nearly split his skull, and left a long deep 
scar there the rest of his days ; but he put an end 
to the duelling of his antagonist by running him 
through the body. 

Of his personal comeliness it is related that 
once, on parade, a noble lady pointed him out 
to her companion and exclaimed : What a splen- 
did looking general that would make ! She little 
knew she was playing the part of a prophetess. 

And it was not long before his fine bearing 
stood him in still better stead. Near by was a 
regiment of grenadiers of the king's guard. 
These superb fellows had noticed the soldier 
like qualities of Hoche, and they petitioned that 
he might be enrolled among them. The peti- 
tion was granted. - 

These men when in barracks, were allowed 
to earn money by any honest industry that did 
not interfere with their duty, and Hoche addicted 
himself to embroidery. If you think this an 
efteminate occupation for a soldier, I would 
remind those of you who have been to sea in 
a sailing ship, that you must have observed that 
sailors who are certainly as rough as soldiers, are 
often skillful in needle work useful and orna- 
mental. 



1 5 6 HISTORIC B UBBLES 

With the money Hoche earned In this manner, 
he bought books, especially books of history; and 
as he dwelt upon the renown of Hannibal and of 
Caesar, of Turenne and Conde, of Marlborough 
and of Frederic, it was his dream to write his 
own name some day on that immortal list, 
I say dream, for it could be nothing more then, 
under the old regime when the command of 
armies was the prerogative of the nobility alone. 

In 1789 occurred the first overt act of the 
French revolution — the storming of the Bastille. 
It was the same year that George Washington 
was inaugurated first president of the United 
States. The end of our revolution was the begin- 
ning of that of the people of France, and ours 
precipitated theirs. It was high time perhaps 
that the old regime came to an end; but we 
Americans ought none the less look back upon 
it with gratitude. Without its aid we could 
not have compassed our independence. It was 
the troops sent us by Louis XVI. that offset the 
German forces that came here in aid of our 
enemies. 

Hoche was too well informed not to under- 
stand the issue between the government and the 
people, and he believed in his heart that the 
people were right; but he was the sworn soldier 
of the king and he was determined to defend him 
so long as defence was possible. He was present 



HOCUE 157 

at Versailles when the Parisian mob worthily led 
by that frail beauty Theroigne de Mericourt 
broke into the chateau and made the king come 
out on the balcony with the cap of liberty on his 
head. Hoche stood there shoulder to shoulder 
with his comrades ready to charge upon the 
rabble the moment the signal was given. But 
the signal was never given: Louis XVI. was the 
best of men and the worst of kings : He had not 
the heart to shed the blood of his subjects, so 
they shed his blood. 

Legend says there was also there on that 
occasion another young man of still rarer 
qualities, who whispered to a companion that 
the king was an imbecile not to order those fine 
guards to slaughter the vagabonds and put an 
end to the disturbance. The anecdote may not 
be true, but it is none the less characteristic: it 
is perhaps the reflex of what that young man him- 
self did a few years later. 

The king was led to Paris and kept virtually 
a captive in the Tuileries, and Hoche with his 
regiment passed under the command of La 
Fayette whose purpose was not to overthrow the 
monarchy but to reform it on a constitutional 
basis. But the French revolution was different 
from ours: ours was aristocratic, a change at 
tiie head only, still retaining remnants of feudal 
tyranny— such for example as the divine right 



158 HISTORIC BUBBLES 

of sovereigns not to pay their debts — which we 
are not yet emancipated enough to throw off. 
Theirs on the contrary was democratic, or rather 
volcanic, the very dregs from the botton thrown 
to the top. 

La Fayette was obHged to fly for his Hfe; and 
the army went over and frater?used as it was 
called, with the populace. The rise of Hoche was 
now rapid. Beside courage he was gifted with 
a thoughtful self-possession which never failed 
him. The display of this virtue on an occasion 
when he covered the retreat of a beaten army, 
attracted the notice of Carnot the minister of 
war — "the organiser of victory" as he was called — 
and he made Hoche a brigadier general. 

In 1792 the supreme authority of France was 
usurped by a body known as the Convention. In 
1793 the king was brought to the block, and all 
Europe rose to avenge his death. The English 
government had fitted out an army under the 
command of the duke of York, son of George 
III., to cooperate with the allied enemies of the 
new republic. York was a methodical soldier, 
and minding the old rule not to leave a hostile 
stronghold in the rear, he turned aside to be- 
siege Dunkirk in the north-east corner of France, 
in.stead of hastening south. Carnot caught at 
the fault of the Englishman and put it to profit. 
He ordered Hoche to throw himself into Dun- 



HOCHE 159 

kirk with a few battallions and hold it to the 
last extremity. Hoche found the defences in 
bad condition and the inhabitants who were 
a conglomeration of various nationalities, not in 
the least disposed to aid him in repairing them. 
He seized the chief magistrate and threw him into 
prison, and warned the other functionaries that 
they would be sent to join him, if they did not 
come up to his help against the English. They 
came; and by the "time the duke had established 
his lines of circumvallation with scientific skill, 
Hoche and his men were prepared to do all that 
was expected of them, namely, to keep the duke 
of York out of mischief for some time to come. 
One day the sound of cannon was heard off 
south, and soon the English were observed to 
be preparing to quit. Hoche though shut in 
from outward news, penetrated the situation. 
An allied army under Freytag coming up from 
the south-east, and a French army under 
Houchard coming up from the south-west, had 
intercepted each other and given battle. The 
English had received a message from Freytag, 
notifying them to come to the aid of their friends. 
Hoche resolved that they should do nothing of 
the sort. He sallied out upon them, threw them 
into some disorder and thus detained them till 
the battle of Hondschoote was lost and won. 
Houchard victorious pushed for Dunkirk. The 



i6o HISTORIC BUBBLES 

English, hindered by this fresh sortie of Hoche, 
came tardily and faultily into order of battle, 
and after a short struggle, broke and fled leaving 
their artillery and their baggage. 

Hoche shared with Houchard the glory of this 
double victory. The conduct of the duke of 
York was the subject of a parliamentary inquiry 
in which he was duly whitewashed as became a 
prince of the blood. Had he been a commoner 
he might have shared the fate of Admiral Byng'^ 

Carnot showed anew his appreciation of Hoche 
by giving him the command of the army of the 
Moselle — a grave responsibility for a youth of 
twenty-five; and Carnot made the mistake of 
not letting the responsibiHty rest squarely upon 
his shoulders: he sent commissioners to direct 
him. 

An allied army superior in force and in a strong 
position, under the duke of Brunswick, lay at 
Keyserslautern. The commissioners counselled 
an attack. Hoche though daring was not rash, 
and the born instinct of the soldier within him 
whispered that the risk was too great; so he hesi- 
tated. The commissioners insisted, and he led 



*Byng was defeated by a French fleet in the Mediter- 
ranean. There was no question of his courage or loyalty, 
but he was none the less condemned to be shot; and the 
barbarous sentence was carried into effect, Voltaire 
said it was " puiir encouragar los autres." 



HOCHE i6i 

forward his troops. The battle lasted two days, 
and never perhaps was the genius of the young 
general more conspicuous. Repulsed, he 
marched his men off the field as he had marched 
them on — shoulder to shoulder, beaten but not 
demoralized, and the enemy did not follow 
him up. 

Carnot was sufficiently just not to blame him 
for this failure. On the contrary he sent him re- 
enforcements, and he sent him also what he would 
willingly have dispensed with — fresh commis- 
sioners to advise him. Hoche had pondered 
deeply the cause of his defeat, and had resolved 
that that cause should not again operate. He 
refused to consult with the commissioners: he 
would neither tell them his own plans nor listen 
to theirs. Taking off his cap and shaking it in 
their faces in that dramatic style so very French, 
h^ exclaimed: If that cap knew my thoughts I 
would throw it in the fire! Finding him obdu- 
rate they went back to Paris and made no favor- 
able report of him. 

Hoche had under him at this time several 
officers of about his own age who afterwards 
made their mark in history: Moreau the victor 
of Hohenlinden, who fell at last at Dresden fight- 
ing against France; Ney the bravest of the brave. 
Desaix who came late but not too late on the 
field of Marengo, and died at the head of his 



i62 HISTORIC B UBBLES 

column; Le Fevre the hero of the i8. Bru- 
maire when he scattered the council of the 
five hundred with his grenadiers, and saved 
Bonaparte; Soult who won his baton of mar- 
shal by piercing the Russian centre at Austerlitz. 
He distinguished himself afterwards in Spain; 
and what is a more interesting distinction for 
you esthetic gentlemen, he sold to the French 
government for 615,000 francs — the highest 
price ever paid for a picture — the sublime Murillo 
of the Louvre. And I am sorry I cannot tell 
you how he came by it: there was scandal there- 
unto anent. 

It is probable that Hoche imparted his plans 
'to these able lieutenants, for it is otherwise 
inexplicable that they should have acquiesced 
in the strange measures he adopted. Instead of 
seeking the enemy, he took every pains to avoid 
him. He blew up the bridges and tore up the 
roads; and the allies seeing him bent on defen- 
sive measures only, failed to watch him as he 
deserved. And there were disquieting rumors 
in Paris. Hoche was certainly not a coward, 
but was he not a traitor? Had he not sold himself 
for Austrian gold? Such things had been. 

One day the news came that he and his army 
had disappeared in the night. Perhaps they had 
gone over to the enemy; for the atmosphere 
was charged with treachery, and men were daily 



HOC HE 163 

clianging their politics with the changing- fortune 
of war. The next news of Hoche was that he 
had fallen as if from the clouds, upon a strong- 
Austrian position the other side of the Vosges 
mountains. And the position was so strong too 
that for a moment he was in danger of a second 
repulse, A battery on a height made such havoc 
with his men that they cjuailed. Six hundred 
francs n piece for those cannon! cried he, point- 
ing with his sword. It is a bargain replied one 
of his officers. You shall judge between us 
added another as they clambered up. The bat- 
tery was taken ; and the Austrians fell back on the 
Prussian position at Sultz where their joint forces 
awaited the coming of the French. They did 
not wait long and their defeat was total. 

The victory was as important as decisive. 
The purpose of the allied army there was to pre- 
vent the junction of Hoche and Pichegru, the 
latter commanding the army of the Rhine. That 
junction now took place. According to military 
rule Pichegru the older man and the older 
ofif.cer outranked Hoche and was entitled to 
the chief command; but the Convention, dazzled 
by the brilliancy with which Hoche had redeemed 
his reputation decreed that he should have the 
precedence, and Pichegru after some protest con- 
sented to serve under his boy superior. 

The allies had withdrawn behind the fortifi- 



1 64 HISTORIC B UBBLE3 

cations of Landau and Wissembourg, and so long 
as they were there the French frontier was in- 
fested and nothing permanent accomplished. 
Hoche resolved to dislodge them. He told his 
troops he had a bloody task for them : They must 
storm Landau! They responded by waving 
their caps and shouting Landau ou la mort, Lan- 
dau or death! And it was no idle boast: Amid 
a scene of sickening carnage Landau was taken 
and the allies disheartened did not wait for that 
terrible forlorn hope to mount to the breach at 
Wissembourg. 

The frontier was thus cleared of enemies, and 
the Republic set free to follow up that spasmodic 
career of conquest which brought for a moment 
the continent to her feet. 

Hoche now took it into his head to get mar- 
ried, though we cannot imagine how he could 
stop fighting long enough to attend to anything 
so sentimental. Perhaps he did not object to 
variety in his fighting. He had met at Thionville 
a graceful girl who had strongly attracted him. 
On inquiry he learned that her character was as 
commendable as her manners, and he offered 
her his hand. Her family though respectable 
was not wealthy, and through diffidence she 
hesitated. What was she that the first soldier of 
France should pick her out! But her friends 
would not let her miss such a chance, and they 



HOCHE 165 

«vere married; and I leave you to the chronicles 
which aver that she made him a good wife. 

At any other epoch of the history of France, and 
at any epoch whatever of the history of any other 
people, a young general who had encircled his 
name with so much glory, would have been 
the idol of the nation; but France had fallen 
upon strange lines. The Reign of Terror was 
at its height; the Convention had turned upon 
itself; the Girondists, republicans all, had gone 
to the scafifold; Danton the rival of Robespierre, 
had fallen; and that sanguinary triumvirate 
Robespierre, Saint Just and Couthon were the 
arbiters of life and death to all so unfortunate as 
to live under the aegis of Liberty, Equahty and 
Fraternity. 

It is necessary to consider a moment the state 
of things under the Terror, in order to make the 
rest of this story credible. Lamartine, a republi - 
can himself, says: ''More than eight thousand 
suspects encumbered the prisons. In one night 
three hundred families the most notable in 
France, historical, military, parliamentary, epis- 
copal, were arrested. No crimes were invented 
for them: they were guilty by the quarter they 
lived in, by their rank, their fortune, their rela- 
tions, their religion, their opinions, their pre- 
sumed opinions. One died for having said what 
he thought; another for having held his tongue; 



1 66 HISTORIC B UBBLES 

one for having emigrated and come back; 
another for having staid at home; one for hav- 
ing increased the public distress by not spending 
his income; another for having insulted the public 
distress by spending it too lavishly. In a word 
tiiere were no longer any innocent or any guilty: 
there v/ere only the proscribers and the pro- 
scribed." 

Under this fearful regime many of the truest 
and bravest soldiers of France had perished: the 
duke of Lauzun and Biron who had fought for 
us under Washington and La Fayette; the count 
d'Estaing who at the same time commanded the 
French fleet off our coast; Custine the victor 
of Mayence, and strangest of all, Houchard the 
victor of Honschoote. La Fayette had saved 
himself by flight; so had Dumouriez the victor 
of Jemappes. Some of these were proscribed 
because they were of noble birth; others because, 
though plebeian and republican, they did not 
fully come up to the standard of fanaticism then 
in vogue. 

Robespierre and Saint Just are two of the 
monsters of history; yet we cannot doubt that 
they were animated by what they regarded as 
devoted and unselfish patriotism. They were 
as ready to lay down their own lives as to 
take the lives of others, and they did lay 
them down. 



HOCHE 167 

They wore amonpr the "best ill ti strati on s of that 
saying of Gibbon that fanaticism can turn the 
noblest natures into beasts of prey. 

Hoche had lost much of the friendship of 
Carnot by flouting his authority in the matter 
of the commissioners, and by setting up on his 
own account as an "organiser of victory." 
Robespierre looked upon all great warriors as 
a menace to Liberty, EquaHty and Fraternity; 
and since the campaign of Wissembourg, Hoche 
was regarded as the first of living generals. He 
had moreover been approached by the royalists 
with the same temptation that was afterwards 
spread before Bonaparte, namely, that he should 
undertake the role of General Monk, and if he 
succeeded, the lofty function of Constable of 
France was to be revived for him. He had 
scorned these offers; yet with the perversity of 
human nature especially of human nature under 
the Terror, he was held accountable for their 
having been made. 

The Convention resolved to arrest him before 
he became too strong for them. But did they 
dare seize him at the head of the troops he had 
led and who adored him? The Terrorists had 
not only General Monk to reflect upon but the 
case at their own doors of Dumouriez. When 
they had sent commissioners to arrest that 
officer in his camp, he had ordered a file of 



1 6S HISTORIC B UBBLES 

soldiers to seize them and deliver them over to 
the enemy.* 

Hoche was a spirit of higher stamp than 
Dumouriez. Might he not improve on the 
methods of that captain, and march at once on 
Paris? So they thought best to use indirection: 
they lavished eulogies upon him, and invited him 
to lay down his present command and accept 
that of the army of Italy — a force just levied for 
the invasion of the Italian provinces of the 
House of Austria. He readily consented to the 
change, for that invasion was a favorite idea of 
his own. The Convention named to succeed 
him in the place he was vacating, Jourdan who 
justified their choice the next year by gaining the 
victory of Fleurus. 

Hoche was completing the preparations for 
the campaign which another and a greater was 
to lead, when a warrant came for his arrest. He 
made no resistance. Perhaps resistance was 
useless; perhaps he considered obedience a 
paramount duty; perhaps he trusted in his star 
and believed they would not dare put him to 
death, and his star did not mislead him. He 



* Dumouriez did not wait for a second embassy; he 
fled and there fled with him a young prince who had 
fought by his side for republican France — the duke of 
Chartres, afterwards duke of Orleans, afterwards Louis 
Philippe king of the French. 



HOCHE 169 

was taken to Paris. Robespierre and Saint 
Just were in favor of his immediate execution, 
but Couthon either from prudence or a worthy 
purpose to save Hoclie, pleaded that it might 
not be well to sacrifice that young hero with 
such laurels on his brow — the people might not 
take it in good part; and that it would be safer 
to keep him in custody till time and the victories 
of others had dimmed the lustre of his reputation. 
So he was put into the prison of the Conciergerie. 

To do the Terrorists justice they were not dis- 
posed to treat their prisoners with any other 
cruelty than to cut their heads off; and Hoche 
was allowed the consolation of writing to his 
wife and of receiving her letters. He was soon 
joined by a young man named Thoiras of whose 
imprisonment he was the innocent cause. 
Thoiras was a friend of the family of Madame 
Hoche, and had expressed indignation at Hoche's 
arrest. 

To be imprisoned was to be condemned to 
die. No trial, no examination; but every even- 
ing the Committee of Public Safety went over 
the list, and marked off chiefly at random, as 
many as could be guillotined on the morrow; 
and this fatal roll was read aloud each morn- 
ing, in the different prisons. 

One day the name of Thoiras was called. He 
bade farewell to Hoche, and drew from hii 



I70 HISTORIC BUBBLES 

pocket a watch which he begged hnn to keep 
for his sake. That watch is still in the family of 
Hoche. That is to say, the last I know of it, 
it belonged to the Marchioness of Roye, Hoche's 
daughter; but that lady was born about a century 
ago. 

Among other interesting prisoners whose 
acquaintance Hoche made in the Conciergerie, 
were two young and charming widows whose 
fate proved different from what was then threat- 
ened. One of them, instead of having her head 
cut ofif by the guillotine, was to have it encircled 
by a diadem. It was Josephine de Beauharnais. 
The other was already a passive agent in a plot 
for the overthrow of the Terror. We shall say 
more about her presently. 

As fast as prisoners were led out to execution 
others were brought in to take their placesj and 
who might be the new comers was a daily sub- 
ject of mournful curiosity to those already in- 
carcerated. One day there were ushered into 
the Conciergerie three men who caused great 
amazement. Two were recognized as Saint 
Just and Couthon. The third had his face 
bound up with a bloody napkin, but it was soon 
whispered about that it was none other than 
the terrible Robespierre himself. 

The tale has been told a thousand times: per- 
haps you will listen to it the thousand and first 



HOCHE 171 

time. One of the youngest and ablest mem- 
bers of the Convention was Jean Lambert Tal- 
lien. He was not a good man: his hand was as 
blood-stained as the rest. He had clamored 
foi the death of the king, and for the death of 
his co-republicans the Girondists. He had 
seconded Danton in the massacres of September. 
Ht had recently been sent to Bordeaux to see 
that the Terror was duly administered there, 
and that an adequate number of heads fell daily 
in the market-place, and he had fulfilled his mis- 
sion with diabolical fidelity. 

There lived in Bordeaux at that time one 
Madame de Fontenay whose beauty Balzac says 
was one of Nature's masterpieces. This was the 
second of the two young widows whom Hoche 
had met in prison. I have called her a widow but 
she was not quite that: she was a divorced 
woman. Her husband who was a nobleman and 
a royahst had emigrated, that is, had fled from 
the guillotine and from such fellows as Tallien. 
The republic had decreed that a wife who was 
patriotic enough to stay behind under such 
circumstances, should be entitled to a divorce; 
and Madame de Fontenay who loved her country 
better than she loved her husband, had availed 
herself of this law, and was now free. But her 
name was aristocratic and her friends respect- 
able, and in the daily increasing barbarity of the 



1 7 2 HISTORIC B UBBLES 

Terror she was in great dang-er. As fearless 
and capable as she was beautiful she resolved 
to meet the peril half way. She paid a visit to 
Tallien and pleaded her cause so eloquently that 
he assured her of his protection. He went back 
to Paris, but he could not get out of his head 
the vision of that appealing, resistless woman. 
He wrote to her and she wrote back. He urged 
her to come to Paris so that he might befriend her 
more effectually, and she came. 

This virtuous passion seemed to work a 
change in that bad man. He determined to 
shed no more blood; he becjfan to hang back in 
the hellish path of the Convention. Robespierre 
looked askance at him and soon became an un- 
friend. Thinking to provoke Tallien to some 
rash act that would afford a pretext for sending 
him to the guillotine, Robespierre seized 
Madame de Fontenay and threw her in prison. 
Well, it did provoke Tallien to a rash act, but 
it was not he who went to the guillotine. He 
became the chief of a conspiracy for the destruc- 
tion of the triumvirate. He was urged forward 
by two of the strongest of motives: to save his 
own life and to save the life of the woman he 
loved. The plot spread, for every member of the 
Convention who differed in opinion even un- 
Vv^ittingly from Robespierre, was in danger of 
the scaffold. 



HOCHE 173 

On the evening of the 8th. Thermldor a month 
that embraced a part of July and August, the 
conspirators held council. It was resolved 
that in the session of the morrow Tallien should 
lead the attack on Robespierre; and the rest 
swore by all they held sacred which was not 
much, to back him to the death. 

The ninth Thermidor— day big with fate — 
epoch in the history of the revolution — dawned. 
The Convention assembled. Tallien gained the 
tribune. He was an impressive speaker, and 
when he had fixed the attention of the assembly 
he proceeded first to comment on the acts of the 
triumvirate, then to criticise, then to call in ques- 
tion, then to condemn, then to denounce. It 
was now his life or theirs and he hurled defiance 
at them. 

When he had done, Robespierre rose. He 
was evidently taken aback by this unexpected 
arraignm.ent. He made a feeble reply in which 
he dilated on his own devotion to the public 
cause and on the heinousness of the traitors who 
were turning against him. He then looked 
around for the usual response: Vive la Repub- 
Hque! Vive Robespierre! Not a word. There 
was dead silence. Presently a voice was heard: 
A bas les tyrans, down with the tyrants! The 
cry was echoed and reechoed. Tallien saw 
the hour was come. He ordered the guards to 



174 HISTORIC BUBBLES 

arrest Robespierre, Saint Just and Couthon. 
The soldiers seeing the triumvirs still calmly 
seated could not believe that three men just now 
all powerful could be condemned, and they 
hesitated. The order was repeated not only by 
Tallien but by an outcry of his backers who 
were now a multitude; and the guards led them 
forth. They took them first to the palace of the 
Luxembourg where Robespierre seeing that 
all was lost, drew a pistol and attempted to kill 
himself, but he took aim so badly that the ball 
merely broke his jaw and went out at the oppo- 
site cheek. Hence the bloody napkin. 

They were condemned to death by the same 
Committee of Public Safety which a few days 
before was their pliant tool of assassination. 

It was the end. The Reign of Terror was 
over, and all political prisoners were set free. 
It was thus that Hoche and Josephine and 
Madame de Fontenay recovered their liberty. 

I suppose you ladies will not let me off from 
the rest of the love affairs of that facinating dame 
and Tallien. Well, they were married, and 
Madame Tallien was one of the queens of beauty 
and fashion under the Directory the Consulate 
and the Empire. It was in her drawing room 
that Bonaparte first met Josephine. After he 
became emperor he quarrelled with Madame 
Tallien. She was too witty and had too little 



HOCHE 175 

reverence for the deml-god; so he would no 
longer let Josephine associate with her old friend 
and fellow prisoner. 

Tallien lived to be old. In his last years he 
was supported by a small pension granted him 
by Louis XVIII. whose brother Tallien had done 
to death. Such was the vengeance of the House 
of Bourbon. And it was another prince of that 
house who brought from Saint Helena the re- 
mains of the arch-enemy of his race, and placed 
them in that superb tomb under the dome of 
the Invalids. Contrast this with what the Eng- 
lish restoration did with the Regicides and with 
the remains of Cromwell. 

The greatest of French rulers sleeps in the 
most gorgeous mausoleum of modern times: the 
greatest of English rulers — Where is his grave? 

Hoche was no sooner out of prison than the 
Committee of PubHc Safety who had been ask- 
ing themselves day after day whether the time 
had come to send him to the guillotine, gave him 
a new command. This time it was one he 
would fain have shrunk from; for he was to draw 
his sword against Frenchmen. In the west of 
P'rance was the new Department of La Vendee. 
The inhabitants were rural in their occupations 
and primitive in their manners. They were 
devoted Roman Catholics and consequently 
devoted royalists. Many priests flying for 



176 HISTORIC B UBBLES 

tlieir lives from Liberty, Equality and Fra- 
ternity had taken refuge among them, and had 
strengthened their fealty to the old regime. The 
Vendeeans had risen in arms against the Re- 
public, and the insurrection had extended to 
neighboring Departments. Such was the valor 
of the men and the skill of their leaders that they 
had thus far repulsed every force sent against 
them. Even Kleber afterwards the victor of 
Heliopolis, had been defeated and driven back. 
France face to face with Europe in arms, could 
hardly survive with this ulcer in her bosom: it 
was therefore her best soldier that she now chose 
to deal with it. Hoche set about the task with 
characteristic energy. He made no mistakes, he 
suffered no defeats and at the end of a sanguinary 
campaign La Vendee was pacificated, that is, was 
turned into a desert. 

It is illustrative of the imbecility with which 
this European war upon France was for 
some years carried on, that no adequate effort 
v\^as made to take advantage of this revolt of the 
Vendeeans. The only important attempt to 
second them was the expedition to Quiberon 
Bay. A small force of emigrants, that is of 
French royalists were conveyed to that bay by 
an English fleet. They landed and fortified their 
position; and as it was commanded by the Eng- 
lish guns, they felt themselves safe till they could 



HOCHE 177 

form junction with the insurgents. But they 
had counted without their host, that is without 
Hoche; and almost before they thought he could 
be aware of their coming, his troops were scaling 
their defenses. The affair was soon over, and 
but few of the invaders escaped. What added 
to the carnage was that the guns of the EngUsh 
fleet played the while upon the scene of action, 
mowing down with cynical impartiality friend 
and foe alike. The English commander no 
doubt felt that every man laid low was one 
Frenchman the less, and how could he send 
ashore first to ascertain his politics? 

It was toward the close of Hoche's campaign 
in La Vendee that another campaign more not- 
able was in progress on the eastern frontier. Let 
us take a glance at the chain of events that caused 
this campaign to be so remarkable. 

The Convention was not an adequate govern- 
ment for a great people, but it was better than 
none. Such however was not the opinion of 
the socialists and communists and anarchists who 
swarmed in Paris, and had gained control of 
the Sections, that is of the ward-meetings. These 
philosophers held that the best government was 
the one that governed the least, and therefore 
an ideal government was one that did not gov- 
ern at all. They rose to suppress the Conven- 
tion, so that every man might be a law unto him- 



1 7 8 HISTORIC B UBBLES 

self, and Liberty, Equality and Fraternity do 
their perfect work. The crisis was alarming: 
the Convention appealed for protection to Gen- 
eral Barras the military head of Paris. Barras 
had under him an artillery officer full of original 
ideas. This was the young man already referred 
to as having been at Versailles when the mob 
broke into the palace, and as having called the 
king an imbecile for not ordering his guards to 
use their bayonets. Among his other excellences 
this young gentleman was handsome. We have 
said that Hoche was handsome, but their respect- 
ive success In the path of beauty, was dififerent. 
Hoche was tall and of martial aspect. This other 
Apollo was small of stature and had the features 
and the hands and the feet of a good-looking 
girl. Nevertheless he was not a favorite with 
the ladies. He had ways they did not like. 
When they talked he would not listen as he 
ought, and as we all ought, but would look off 
into vacancy as if rapt in thought; and they 
were malicious enough to say that he mas rapt in 
thought — the thought of his own attractions; 
and considering the complex character of the 
man It is not impossible the ladles were right. 
With men however he stood better. Few could 
come in contact with him without feeling his in- 
fluence, and Barras was often led by him. To 
him then he had recourse in the threatened 



HOC HE 179 

peril. The young officer planted cannon in 
different parts of the town under heutenants of 
his own mettle, and himself took charge of a 
few pieces in the street' Saint Honore at the corner 
where stands the church Saint Roch. The 
insurgents came swarming up. He gave them 
no warning of what was in store for them but 
waited till they were within range, and then let 
drive into them a pitiless storm of grape-shot. 
The pavement was strewed with the dead and 
dying. Revolt had met its match: the Conven- 
tion was saved. 

A few weeks later, in October 1795, the Con- 
vention laid down its functions and was replaced 
by the Directory which body in the follov/ing 
February, conferred upon this remorseless gun- 
ner the command of the army of Italy, the army 
from which Hoche had been withdrawn to be 
thrown into prison. Behold then this new 
apostle of grape-shot red-handed from the slaugh- 
ter of his fellow republicans, at the head of the 
best and worst army of the Repubhc! His men 
as it proved, were fully gifted with that fanatical 
valor which made the revolutionary soldier so 
formidable; but their clothes were in rags and 
their shoes full of holes, and as for food Thiers 
intimates that it was a choice between stealing 
and starving. Their young commander told 
them what was perfectly true — for he had con- 



i8o HISTORIC BUBBLES 

tracted the habit of telhng the truth when it would 
serve — that he was as poor as they; silver and 
gold had he none; but their bayonets were in good 
order, and he was going to lead them to a land 
of promise flowing with food and raiment and 
money to boot. And at the head of these ma- 
rauders he passed into Italy. 

I need not remind you how he made short 
work of all opposition; how three allied armies 
each superior to his own, went down one after 
another before his ragamufilins as if three earth- 
quakes had yawned for them. History had never 
before and has never since recorded so rapid a 
succession of decisive victories. 

Hoche read with mingled admiration and 
envy the bulletins that came from this astonish- 
ing campaign. He was loud in his applause of 
the new hero, but he was at no pains to conceal 
his chagrin that he himself had not been per- 
mitted to lead those troops to that field of glory. 
Had he been so permitted would the result have 
been the same? We may easily believe that his 
energy and soldiership would have borne him 
through triumphant; but that the Italian cam- 
paign would then have stood out the great 
masterpiece of modern warfare may be doubted. 
We may claim that Hoche was a great general 
without claiming for him the genius of Bona- 
parte. 



HOCHE 



i«i 



La Vendee pacificated,* Hoche fell Into the 
delusion still common on the continent of Europe 
and in this country, that the Irish need only a 
little outside aid and cooperation to revolt against 
the domination of the English. He headed 
an expedition to Ireland. His fleet was scat- 
tered by a storm, and driven back; and as his 
services were needed elsewhere, he did not renew 
the attempt. 

-He took command of the army of the Sambre 
and Meuse and advanced to the left bank of the 
Rhine with eighty thousand men. On the right 
bank was the enemy in still greater force but 
much scattered to prevent him from crossing. 
The bridges and fords for miles bristled with 
cannon. But he outmanoevred his opponent 
and repeated the noted feat of Conde by crossing 
the Rhine in face of the enemy. A series of 
battles followed in which Hoche was victorious. 
He was pursuing the beaten allies, and had writ- 
ten to the Directory that he expected to bring 
them to bay on the banks of the Danube, when 
he received news of the armistice of Leoben 
signed by Bonaparte and the archduke Charles; 
and he had nothing to do but to lead back his 
troops foiled of their prey. 

All misgiving as to the fidelity of Hoche 
to the Republic had vanished, wdiile Bona- 
parte had already betrayed qualities which 



XB2 HISTORIC BUBBLES 

excited the distrust of the Directory just 
as Cromwell had excited the distrust and 
more of the Rump and of the Barebones 
parliament. The army of the Rhine was 
added to the army of the Sambre and Meuse; 
and the joint command given to Hoche, placed 
him in effect at the head of the military force of 
the nation. He was soon called to Paris to 
overawe the same uneasy spirits who had tried 
to overturn the Convention, and it is noteworthy 
that it was Hoche and not Bonaparte who was 
thus summoned, although it was the latter 
who had demonstrated as we have seen, the 
true method of arguing with those philanthro- 
pists. 

The approach of Hoche to the Capital exposed 
him to a curious accusation which illustrates the 
taste of the revolutionists for mimicking the 
ancient Romans. The Directory had decreed 
a line of circumference around Paris within 
which no armed force must pass without special 
permission. Hoche had mistaken the boundary 
of this new Rubicon and had crossed it at the 
head of his men. He was arraigned before the 
Directory, but his explanation was accepted and 
he was more popular than ever. 

This preference for Ploche over Bonaparte 
gave rise to jealousy which had no time to de- 
velop into action. Hoche returned to his camp 



HOCHE 183 

at Wetzlar only to die. He who had faced death 
in so many pitched battles, was reserved to yield 
up his soul in peace, his wife and child kneeling 
at his bed-side. He was twenty-nine years 
old. 

His death was so sudden that there was talk 
of poison, to which the autopsy it seems lent 
some color. Alexander Dumas makes no doubt 
that he was poisoned, and that it was done at the 
instigation of Bonaparte. But Dumas is not 
to be trusted. He had inherited the prejudices 
of his father a general of division who had served 
under Bonaparte and had had a bitter quarrel 
with him. Hoche had gone back to Wetzlar 
with a cough, and he probably died of pneumonia. 

Had he lived would he too have bent the knee 
around the imperial throne? Probably not. 
Would he like Moreau have lent his sword to the 
enemies of France? That is still less probable. 
The French are apt to say that if Hoche had 
survived there would have been no empire, no 
emperor; but might there not have been some- 
thing worse : France divided into two hostile 
camps under two great captains ? 

The renown of Hoche pales necessarily in the 
presence of that of his great rival, just as the 
renown of Hampden pales in presence of that of 
Cromwell; but as men and as patriots Hamxpden 
and Hoche were purer and nobler than their 



X84 HISTORIC BUBBLES 

rivals. The former were ambitious for their 
country, the latter for themselves. 

It is a satisfaction to add in conclusion, that 
in those impious years of the revolution, when 
Christian worship was neglected and at times 
proscribed, and a mummery in honor or dis- 
honor of Reason and Human Nature substituted, 
Hoche did not share in the prevailing misbelief. 
He writes to a friend that he had been piously 
taught in his childhood, and that he still believes 
and reveres the religion of Jesus Christ. 



One of the large war-steamers recently built 
by the French, is named the Hoche. 



An Interesting Ancestor of Queen 
Victoria 



IN the fourteenth century the Spanish penin- 
sular was divided into five kingdoms: four 
Christian and one Mahometan or Mohametan 
or Mohamedan. The reader will take his choice. 
Wars were constant between the two faiths. 
This was a blessing, at least for the Christians, 
for if they had not been kept always shoulder to 
shoulder against the Moor, they would have been 
less usefully busy cutting each other's throats. 

Nobody in the middle ages abstained from the 
vice of fighting. Bishops in panoply led their 
flocks to battle, and even a century later than the 
epoch of my story, one pope JuHus II., when- 
ever spiritual weapons failed him, which was 
often, seized the carnal, and showed himself one 
of the stoutest combatants in Europe. 

On the throne of Castile sat Alphonzo XL 
an able monarch. He was at the head of the 
Christian confederacy and commanded at the 
battle of the Rio Salado where the Moors suffered 
a great defeat. Alphonzo had married Dona 
Maria of Portugal a woman of harsh and gloomjr 
(185) 



i86 HISTORIC BUBBLES 

temper whom he did not love. His affections 
were wholly bestciwed upon Leonora de Gusman 
a lady of beauty and intelligence, belonging to 
the higher nobility. His queen nevertheless 
brought him one son, Don Pedro who is known 
in history as Pedro-the-cruel or Peter-the-cruel. 
It is he who is the chief subject of this paper. 

By Leonora, Alphonzo had several children 
of whom the eldest or rather the first born, for 
he had a twin brother, was Don Enrique or 
Henry. Henry was his father's favorite. He 
conferred upon him the estates of Trastamara 
with the title of count, and he is known as Henry 
of Trastamara. These two princes Don Pedro 
and Don Henry both grew up brave, energetic 
and capable. 

It is easy to believe that the queen Dona Maria 
hated with all the bitterness of her sombre nature 
her more brilliant and beautiful rival Leonora; 
but so long as Alphonzo lived, there was peace 
in the family, because, different from some cases 
we hear of, it was he who was master of 
the house. But king Alphonzo died in the 
flower of his age, and then the trouble began. 

Don Henry and his twin brother Don Fred- 
eric and their next brother Don Tello fled from 
the court. They were justly suspicious of the 
designs of their brother Pedro who was now king 
and of the queen-mother, Leonora was more 



PETER THE CRUEL 187 

confiding. She suffered herself to be drawn 
within the power of Dona Maria, and was seized 
and put to death; and soon after, the same fate 
overtook the younger children of Leonora. 

These assassinations caused of course a 
deadly feud between the two branches of the 
family; and Don Henry and his brothers raised 
the standard of revolt. They were defeated. 
Don Frederic fell in battle. Henry and Tello 
fled to France where they entered the service 
of king John H., and fought under the famous 
captain Bertrand Du Guesclin at the battle of 
Poictiers. They were still unfortunate. The 
French were routed at Poictiers by the English 
and Gascons under Edward Prince of Wales 
called the Black Prince. 

Pedro had been affianced to a sister of the 
Black Prince, Joanna Plantagenet daughter of 
Edward HI. but she had died. Pedro then 
married Blanche de Bourbon of the younger 
branch of the blood royal of France. He lived 
with her, the chronicles say, just three days. His 
affections too had gone astray. He had had the 
good sense to keep in his service his father's 
prime minister, Albuquerque who it seems was 
an able statesman. Albuquerque had a beautiful 
cousin known in history as Maria de Padilla. 
Pedro fell in love with her, and his passion was 
as lasting as it was sudden. Indeed the only re* 



i88 HISTORIC B UBBLES 

deeming' trait in that man's character seems to 
have been his undying fondness for a woman he 
had no right to love. 

Before going further let us finish the story of 
queen Blanche. Some years afterwards she 
died in prison at Medina Sidonia. The average 
historian despatches her by poison given by her 
husband's orders; but there really seems to be no 
other reason to beHeve he poisoned her than the 
habit he had fallen into of dismissing in that 
manner those of whom he was weary. All that 
is certain is that she fell sick and a physician 
was called in. That of itself commonly sufficed 
in those days. Even later, in the reign of Philip 
III. we are told by Le Sage that whenever the 
fashionable physician of Valladolid was seen to 
enter a house, the family undertaker immediately 
arranged the obsequies without further notice. 
And the same conscientious historian relates as 
corroborative, that Don Alphonzo de Leyva was 
once taken ill at a remote country tavern. His 
attendants scoured the neighborhood in every 
direction to find a doctor but without success. 
The consequence was Don Alphonzo de Leyva 
in a day or two got well and pursued his 
journey. 

There were assassinations enough to lay at the 
door of Pedro without that one, and it is bad 
economy to put there more than are needed. 



PETER THE CRUEL i8^ 

While Blanche was still living Pedro took it 
into his head to have another wife. He forced 
one of his bishops to marry him to Dona 
Joanna de Castro daughter of a noble Castilian. 
He had lived with Blanche three days; he lived 
with Joanna one, and then went back to Maria 
de Padilla. 

It was in this same family of De Castro that 
had happened a few years previous, a tragic 
event which has ever since been the theme of 
song and story. 

The father of Joanna for some ofiFence real or 
pretended, had been obliged to take refuge in 
Portugal. He took with him his daughter Inez 
half sister of Joanna. Portugal was then under 
the rule of Alphonzo IV. a severe master. His 
son and heir Pedro of Portugal was a prince of 
marked capacity. He was married and lived in 
peace if not in happiness, with his wife Con- 
stance who was valetudinary and petulant. Ifiez 
de Castro was beautiful and to her beauty was 
added grace of manner and the accomplishments 
of that age. Pedro was attracted by her and 
she was drawn towards him. Their intimacy 
however did not go beyond the limits of friend- 
ship : the chronicles agree that the rights of Con- 
stance were respected. She was nevertheless 
jealous and suspicious; she was haunted with the 
idea that Pedro was only waiting for her to die 



19© HISTORIC B UBBLES 

in order to marry Inez, and she resolved to pre- 
vent it. She obtained from the old king an order 
commanding Inez to stand god-mother to one 
of her children. This, according to the canons 
of the Church, was an efifectual bar to a mar- 
riage between Inez and the father of the child. 
That matter arranged to her satisfaction, Con- 
stance died. 

The real barrier between Pedro and Inez be- 
ing thus removed they made short work of the 
artificial one. Pedro induced the bishop of 
Guarda to marry them privately. Inez was 
established at Coimbra on the banks of the 
Mondego where she become the mother of chil- 
dren. As the marriage was not known her repu- 
tation of course suffered. 

King Alphonzo was tolerant enough of this 
liaison such as he imagined it to be; but the 
enemies of Pedro and of the de Castros penetrated 
the secret, and betrayed it to the king. He was 
furious, the more so that it was whispered in 
his ear that Ifiez was practising against the life 
of Ferdinand son of Constance, so as to make 
way to the throne for her own son. 

Alphonzo determined to put a stop to the 
thing in the v/ay things were put a stop to in 
those days. Accompanied by three of his in- 
formers he flew to Coimbra. Ifiez threw herself 
at his feet and pleaded so piteously for her life 



PETER THE CRUEL 191 

that the old king relented. He had not the heart 
to kill her. He turned away and as he withdrew, 
he let fall some expressions of impatience at his 
own weakness, which proved enough for the 
ruffians who were with him. They went back 
and plunged their daggers in the bosom of liiez. 

The rage of Pedro knew no bounds. He 
revolted against his father, and Portugal was 
devastated by civil war. At last, reflecting that 
he was heir to that kingdom, he made peace and 
became so calm that it was thought he had for- 
gt)tten Iiiez. 

His father died and Pedro ascended the throne 
of Portugal. His first purpose was to lay hand 
on the murderers of Ifiez. They had fled into 
Castile. He sent an envoy to Pedro-the-cruel 
claiming them; and the latter, not hindered by 
the obvious justice of the claim, gave them up, 
that is two of them; the third had escaped into 
Aragon beyond the reach of either Pedro. The 
two surrendered were put to death. Then to 
rehabilitate the memory of Inez Pedro, with the 
bishop of Guarda by his side, publicly proclaimed 
the marriage. The body of Ifiez was exhumed 
and the ceremony of coronation performed. A 
crown was placed upon her brow, and the whole 
court with Ferdinand son of Constance at the 
head, passed before her and kneeled and made 
obeisance as to a living queen. A gorgeous 



192 HISTORIC B UBBLES 

funeral followed, and the remains of Inez were 
conveyed to the royal sepulchre of Alcobaca. 
Often, say the chronicles, did Pedro go there to 
weep at the tomb of his beloved wife; and he 
lies by her side now. 

Such is the history of Ifiez de Castro. 

To return to Pedro of Castile. 

The battle of Poictiers brought about a lull 
in the war between England and France, and 
Bertrand Du Guesclin was out of employment. 
He afterwards rose to be constable of France, 
but at this time he was a sort of contractor for 
military work to be paid for in silver and gold; 
and we shall see that he was not the only knight 
of high renown who bargained for pay. The 
implements he used were chiefly the Free-Com- 
panions, a class of combatants half soldier half 
robber that I have already described in my fessay 
on the Captivity. 

Henry of Trastamara proposed to Bertrand to 
unite their resources, march into Castile and de- 
throne Pedro. The knight accepted the offer. 
He hung his banner on the outward wall, and the 
Free-Companions came flocking to it Hke crows 
to a carcass. But where was the money to come 
from? the Free-Companians would not fight 
without pay. So Bertrand made a speech to 
them. He told them they were soldiers not 
thieves, and that it was more respectable to aid 



PETER THE CRUEL 193 

their brother-in-arms Henry of Trastamara to 
conquer a kingdom than to be robbing on the 
highway. He appealed too to their religious 
sensibilities, for in the middle ages religion 
mingled with everything, and was invoked to 
sanction all purposes good or bad. He bade 
them trust in Providence for their pay, and re- 
minded them that they must now and then do 
some good work in order to give the devil the 
slip in the end. 

The wholesome creed of good works prevailed 
at that epoch : justification by faith was hanging 
back, waiting for Luther; and there was none of 
this modern nonsense about there being no 
devil. These fellows knew there was one, and 
that he had cloven hoofs, a pronged tail and 
horns. Some of them had seen him, and if you 
called the fact in question, were ready to vouch 
for it with broad-sword or halberd at your 
choice. It is an historical error that Saint 
Dunstan and some other gentlemen of the cloth 
were the only persons who saw the devil in the 
dark ages. 

Du Guesclin's eloquence prevailed. The men 
caught the spirit of their chieftain, and flung up 
their caps and shouted Long live Henry of Tras- 
tamara! Glory be to God on high! The 
hosanna was in token of their repentance and of 
their resolution to do their marauding for the 
13 



194 HISTORIC BUBBLES 

present as soldiers. The knave of hearts him- 
self was not more contrite when he brought back 
those tarts and vowed he'd steal no more. 

They set out for Spain. It occurred to them 
on the way, that it would be a pious duty to stop 
at Avignon and ask the blessing of the pope. 

I must refer the reader to the essay on the 
Captivity for an account of this visit to his Holi- 
ness. It was successful beyond their hopes, so 
that now with money in both pockets and the 
benediction of the pontiff upon their enterprise, 
they felt they could ransack Castile with a clear 
conscience. 

Pedro was not able to hold his own against 
them. He was driven from Castile, and Henry 
of Trastamara was crowned at Burgos. 

Pedro fled into Guienne. That province then 
belonged to the English. It was a portion of the 
inheritance of Eleanor wife of Henry II. the 
first king of the House of Plantagenet. Ed- 
ward the Black Prince governed it as viceroy 
and held his court at Bordeaux. Edward had 
been on the point of becoming brother-in-law to 
Pedro who had been affianced to Edward's sister 
Joan as I have already related, and Pedro in- 
duced him to undertake to recover for him the 
throne of Castile. Edward insisted on a preHmi- 
nary contract by which Pedro was to pay the 
cost of the expedition if successful. He then 



PETER THE CRUEL 195 

put his legions in motion. Henry called Du 
Guesclin to his side. The knight, probably the 
best soldier in Europe after Edward, was averse 
to a battle. He warned Henry that their Free- 
Companions would not stand against the disci- 
pHned veterans of the Black Prince; but Henry 
was rash as well as brave. He put too much 
trust in his Spanish contingent who had fought 
against the Moors and never yet turned their 
backs to an enemy. The result was the battle 
of Najara where Henry and Bertrand were 
defeated ; and Pedro was restored to the 
throne. 

Edward in taking leave, admonished him to 
be clement to his people, and not massacre quiet 
folks who during the short reign of Henry, had 
shown respect for the king de facto; and also to 
pay promptly the money he owed him. Pedro 
promised to do both; but Edward's back was no 
sooner turned than the dagger, the bowl and 
the cord were in full play again. Pedro seemed 
to think he had too many subjects and that it was 
well to thin them out. One night a gentleman 
was set upon and killed in the streets of Toledo. 
A woman who had witnessed the fray, testified 
that one of the murderers made a crackling 
noise with his legs in walking. This was a 
known peculiarity of the king: he was the assas- 
sin. Pie ordered a wooden efFigy of himself to 



1 96 HISTORIC B UBBLES 

be made and to be beheaded in the market-place. 
This expiation procured for him the name of 
Pedro-the-just. 

As to the other point of his promise, he sent to 
Edward a small sum and then suspended pay- 
ment. Edward demanded the remainder. 
Pedro, after having gone through the whole 
litany of excuses so well known to debtors, sent 
him word that if he wanted his money he had 
better come and get it. He could now do this 
with impunity. The prince had contracted in 
the Najara campaign, a dysentery which proved 
fatal. He lived long enough however to know 
that he had served an ingrate and to foretell 
that the service would do him no good. 

The prediction was verified. Henry no 
sooner learned the death of the Black Prince than 
he hastened to concert new measures with Du 
Guesclin. Once more did the knight muster his 
tramps. They burst into Castile this time with- 
out visiting the pope and getting his blessing: 
perhaps the former benediction was still of force, 
though they had doubtless spent the money. 
Pedro was besieged in one of his towns and taken 
prisoner. He was brought into the presence 
of Henry. The two brothers had not met in 
fifteen years. They drew their swords and flew 
at each other wnth desperate fury, and Pedro fell 
by the hand of Henry. 



PETER THE CRUEL 197 

Henry of Trastamara once more mounted the 
throne of Castile, and this time he transmitted 
it to his descendants. Through a succession 
of Henrys and Johns and Isabellas and Joannas 
which I spare you, the crown of Castile fell to 
Isabella wife of Ferdinand of Aragon. Their 
grandson was the great emperor Charles V. 
From him is descended the present House of 
Spain and also the House of Bourbon. 

But I have intimated that the queen of Eng- 
land is descended from the cruel Pedro. 

Isabella daughter of Peter and Maria de 
Padilla, married Edmund duke of York fifth son 
of Edward III. Their son Richard earl of Cam- 
bridge married Atme Mortimer a marriage 
which tied a knot in English pedigree that it 
took thirty years of civil war to untie, or rather 
to cut with the sword. And who was Anne 
Mortimer to set all England together by the 
ears? 

In the several lulls in that civil war, when a 
Lancastrian and a Yorkist met by chance and 
talked politics, the former would say: John of 
Gaunt was the fourth son of Edward HI. while 
your Edmund of York was the fifth, and thus 
Lancaster takes precedence. Softly my good 
Sir, repHes the Yorkist: Richard of Cambridge 
married Anne Mortimer. The Lancastrian 
responds with the hyperbole that it is not worth 



198 HISTORIC BUBBLES 

while to go back to king Arthur. They touch 
their hats and bid each other good morning, 
or what is quite as hkely, draw their swords and 
fight. 

But who was Anne Mortimer that no honest 
Lancastrian could hear her name with patience? 

In Shakspeare's Henry IV. when the Percies 
revolt against Henry of Lancaster, Hotspur 
says he will find the king asleep and holla 
Mortimer in his ear; he Vv^ill have a starling 
taught to say nothing but Mortimer and give it 
to the king. 

What was there in the name of Mortimer to 
startle so rough a soldier as Henry IV? 

Lionel duke of Clarence was the third son of 
Edward III. older therefore than John of Gaunt. 
Lionel married an Irish girl named Burke. They 
had a daughter Philippa who married Edmund 
Mortimer earl of March. The grand-children 
of Edmund and Philippa were a second Edmund 
Mortimer and Atirie. It was this Edmund whose 
name Hotspur threatened to holla in the ear of 
the sleeping king. Edmund Mortimer was at 
that moment king by right, according to the laws 
of succession to the crown then as now. The 
House of Mortimer however could not vindicate 
its right against two such powerful usurpers as 
Henry IV. and Henry V. But their successor 
Henry VI. was one of the weakest of monarchs, 



PETER THE CRUEL 199 

and under him the Mortimers began to hold up 
their heads. By that time they had become 
Plantagenets again. Edmund had died without 
issue; and Anne was the last of her family. She 
married as I have said, Richard Plantagenet 
earl of Cambridge. Their son was Richard 
duke of York who won the first battle of Saint 
Albans, and came near seizing the crown. His 
son Edward IV. did seize it. He married that 
charming widow Lady Grey daughter of Jaque- 
line of Luxembourg. (See Two Jaquelines.) 
The daughter of that marriage was Elizabeth 
Plantagenet who married Henry Tudor, Henry 
VH. It is there that Plantagenet becomes 
Tudor. Their daughter, Margaret Tudor mar- 
ried James Stuart, James IV. of Scotland, and 
it is there that Tudor becomes Stuart. The son 
of James and Margaret, was another James 
Stuart, James V. who married Mary of Guise of 
that famous House of Lorraine the upshoot of 
which is a remarkable event in French history. 
It took two assassinations to save the last of the 
Valois from having the crown snatched from his 
head by that able and unscrupulous family. The 
daughter of James V. and Mary of Guise was 
Mary Stuart, queen of Scots. She married her 
half-cousin Henry Stuart lord Darnley who like 
herself was grandchild of Margaret Tudor, and 
next to herself, heir to the English crown. The 



200 HISTORIC BUBBLES 

son of Mary and Henry Stuart was James VI. 
of Scotland and first of England. He married 
Anne of Denmark, and their daughter Elizabeth 
Stuart married Frederic count Palatine. The 
daughter of Elizabeth and Frederic was Sophia 
who married Ernest Augustus, elector of Han- 
over, and became the mother of George I. 
George HI. was great-grandson of George I. 
and Victoria is granddaughter of Geoge IIL 

Thus have we traced the pedigree of the 
Queen from Peter-the-cruel. 

After so fatiguing a stretch, it is a comfort 
to take breath and reflect that thus far the Queen 
has not developed the objectionable traits of her 
ancestor. She has never been known to poison 
anybody, nor has a single case of midnight 
assassination been made out against her. 



John Wiclif 



TT has been said that three men struck' telling 
1 blows at the Roman hierarchy: Philip the fourth, 
John Wiclif and Martin Luther: a Frenchman, 
an Englishman and a German. The first opened 
the way for the other two. Philip IV. called the 
fair, that is the handsome, was the greatest of the 
Capetien kings, but his greatness was intellectual 
only. If he contributed largely to lead man- 
kind out of the bog of superstition in which they 
were swamped, he did it simply to gratify his 
own rapacity and ambition. He was the first 
monarch to challenge the Church to a combat a 
outrance; and he succeeded in leading her cap- 
tive literally as well as figuratively. 

It is useless to try, as some quasi historians 
do, to explain the career of Wiclif without tak- 
ing into consideration the state of the Church 
at that epoch; and if the reader is not informed 
on that point, he will not profit much by this 
essay till he has read, marked, learned and in- 
wardly digested the previous one on the Cap- 
tivity of Babylon. 

Cotemporary with Philip IV. was Edward L of 

(201) 



202 1 HISTORIC B UBBLES 

England. The two were pretty evenly matched. 
Edward was probably the better soldier; but m 
his negotiations with Philip, the advantage re- 
mained to the latter. Edward married for his 
second wife Philip's sister; and Edward's son 
married Philip's daughter. It was this last mar- 
riage that caused the hundred years war. 

Edward's grandfather king John, one of the 
basest of monarchs, had been compelled by his 
barons, to accept the Great Charter and 
solemnly to swear to observe it. He appealed 
to the pope Innocent III. to release him from 
that oath, and the pontiff consented on condition 
that John should cede to him in fee the king- 
dom of England and receive it back in tenancy 
as a fief of the Holy See, subject to an annual 
tribute of money as token of vassalage. The 
bargain was consummated : John was empowered 
to violate his oath, and his Holiness became Lord 
paramount of England. He received the tribute 
in silver and gold during the life of John and 
during the long reign of his son Henry III. the 
father of Edward. But when he, Edward, came 
to the throne he resolved not to be outdone by 
his incomparable brother-in-law, and refused to 
continue the tribute. The pope, Boniface VIIL, 
did not follow up the claim with his usual tena- 
city. Perhaps because he already had his hands 
full v/ith Philip ; and perhaps because there super- 



JOHN WICLIF 203 

vened between him and Edward a negotiation of 
a different character. Edward at the head of an 
army, was pursuing his claim to the crown of 
Scotland. The Scotch appealed to the pope 
giving him a correct history of the transactions 
between the two kingdoms, by which the inde- 
pendence of Scotland was fully recognised. 
Boniface ordered Edward to withdraw his troops, 
alleging that Scotland belonged to him, Boni- 
face — a new pretence little to the taste of the 
Scotch themselves. Edward denied the Scotch 
version, and told the pope that the English mon- 
archy was founded by Brutus the Trojan in the 
time of the prophet Samuel, and that Scotland 
was subjugated and annexed by his Edward's 
ancestor king Arthur, a prince for whose exist- 
ence there was the same authority then as now, 
namely the rhymes of the nursery. Boniface 
was struck with the antiquity of the EngHsh 
monarchy and the deeds of the valorous Arthur, 
and he changed sides : he commanded the Scotch 
no longer to resist his beloved son in the Lord, 
king Edward. 

Some years later we find Edward brought 
by his subjects to the verge of dethronement for 
his tyranny, and forced to ratify anew the Great 
Charter and swear to observe it; and then apply- 
ing to Clement V. the French pope, Philip's 
pope, first pope of the Captivity, for a dispensa- 



204 HISTORIC BUBBLES 

tion from his oath. Great as Edward is made to 
appear to us in Enghsh histories, it is clear he 
was not the man to redeem his kingdom from the 
thraldom into which his grandsire had sold it. 
It was the paralysis of the political power of 
the Church effected by Philip IV., which gave 
scope to the innovations of Wiclif and led towards 
the emancipation of England. 

We pass over the reign of Edward's worth- 
less son, and come to that of his grandson in the 
early part of whose reign Wiclif was .born. The 
day of his birth is not known. The third 
Edward came honestly by his qualities moral and 
immoral. He was the grandson not only of 
Edward I. but of the terrible Philip. He was 
not an Englishman — the English blood in his 
veins was just a two hundred and fifty-sixth part. 
He was a French Spaniard with a taint of the 
Moor. He ground his subects to powder by 
unprecedented taxation. He put the crown itself 
in pawn and left it there eight years. But he 
had inherited the unfailing sagacity of his mater- 
nal grandsire, and his people never brought hi>n 
to terms by threatening to dethrone him. 

If he himself did not turn upon the Church 
and rend her like Philip, he was ready to see 
others do it. For aught he cared, Wiclif and the 
other neologists of the day, might have gone 
over to the faith of his Saracenic ancestors, and 



JOHN VVICLIF 205 

translated into English the Koran instead of 
the Bible. Nor were his subjects much more 
true to the hierarchy : loyalty to the pope was no 
longer the vogue. Now-a-days not one Roman 
Catholic in a thousand knows that the see of 
Rome was ever anywhere else than in R.ome: 
the Church has been remiss in disseminating 
information on that point; but at that time every 
Englishman not idiotic, knew that the pope was 
a Frenchman seated down on the Rhone; that 
the cardinals were French; that it was a French- 
man in London who received the tribute of king 
John when he could get it; that in line the Church 
was a French industry which every honest 
Briton was bound to look upon with distrust. 

In the previous century begging had been pro- 
claimed as a means of grace, and this new road 
to heaven was eagerly seized upon by the reli- 
gious orders. Even men of rank and wealth 
turned Franciscan or Dominican and worked 
out their own salvation by standing barefoot, a rope 
around the waist, at the corners of the streets, 
holding out a box for the contributions of the 
devout. The widow's mite entitled her only to 
the formal and general prayers of the convent; 
but those who would make a handsome gift, 
were presented with a document on vellum 
called a Idter of fraterniiy which gained for them 
special masses for the success of their schemes 



2o6 HISTORIC BUBBLES 

in this world, and for the tempering of purga- 
torial fires in the next. This traffic was profit- 
able enough to attract a brisk competition 
among the different orders, for the monopoly; 
and each succeeding pontiff granted it to those 
who by their faith or works — chiefly the latter — 
had risen highest in his esteem. 

England swarmed with these sturdy beggars, 
and this gave handle to Wiclif's attacks not only 
upon them but upon monks in general. He 
himself was a secular priest, that is a priest be- 
longing to no monastic order; and Roman 
Catholic writers aver that Wiclif's hostihty to 
the monks arose from party spirit; and even 
protestant historians do not wholly exculpate 
him in that regard. We know that feelings quite 
mundane went for something occasionally in the 
measures of Luther and of Calvin; and it is not 
improbable that Wiclif had a touch of human 
nature as well as they. He had been made 
warden of Canterbury in tlie place of a monk 
named Woodhall. The archbishop from whom 
Wiclif had received this appointment died, and 
his successor dismissed him and reinstated the 
monk. Wiclif appealed to the pope at Avignon, 
who decided against him, saying that none but 
monks were entitled to such preferment. Wiclif 
sounded the charge. He denied the pope's in- 
fallibility; he denied his right to excommunicate 



JOHN WICLIF 207 

except for crime; his right to extend absohition 
except to the penitent; his right to any temporal 
power, especially his claim to be Lord paramount 
of England by the cession of king John. He 
admitted that the pontiff was Christ's vicar on 
earth so far as he conformed to Christ's pre- 
cept and example and no farther. As for the 
monks, not only their begging but some other 
of their short-comings more questionable were 
the subject of his invective; and to show them 
what they ought to be and to do he sent forth 
his poor priests as he called them, who clad in 
monkish garb, went into the streets and high- 
ways, not to beg but to preach the gospel and 
to read it to the people in English in the transla- 
tion he was already making. 

I have sketched the events which prepared the 
way for WicHf, and it is proof of how well they 
had worked together for him that this opposition 
to the Church instead of losing for him the favor 
of the king, gained it. The tribute of John was 
in arrears, and pope Urban summoned Edward 
to appear before him at Avignon as his vassal, 
and give an account of himself. Edvv^ard was 
not disposed to make so long a journey for so 
little profit ; but he agreed to send commissioners 
to meet those of his Holiness, at Bruges in 
Flanders. Wiclif had the honor of being 
appointed on this commission. A compromise 



2o8 HISTORIC BUBBLES 

was the result. Wiclif was rewarded for the skill 
he had shown as a diplomat, by being made 
rector of Lutterworth, and in that incumbency 
he spent the rest of his days. 

WilHam of Wykeham bishop of Winchester 
was a prelate of learning, talent and excellence. 
He deplored as earnestly as Wiclif the ecclesias- 
tical abuses which reigned, and the objection- 
able ways of the monks. He was of a broad 
spirit: nice theological points never troubled 
him. He recked as little as Wiclif whether the 
Frenchman Grimoard, Urban V. was infallible 
or not, or whether he was entitled to the tribute 
of king John so long as he did not get it.* 

But he idolised the Church and to maintain 
her dignity, her prerogative and even her 
wealth was what he lived for. Both these men 
were in advance of their age : the one by indiffer- 
ence to the prevailing superstitions, the other by 
a desire to blot them out. They ought have 
been friends ; but one was a high churchman, 
the other a low churchman. 

William of Wykeham had been chancellor of 



* Infallibility of the pope and Immaculate conception 
of the Virgin were in that age and long after, points in 
dispute. The Church had not yet erected them into 
cardinal doctrines which we may question only at the 
peril of our salvation. Those additional burthens upon 
our taith were reserved for the present century. 



JOHN WICLIF 209 

England and had resigned. In the next reign, 
that of Richard II., he was once more raised to 
tliat high office. In the meantime he had 
fallen out with John of Gaunt duke of Lancaster 
uncle of Richard, and that quarrel brought about 
an alliance between the duke and Wiclif. John 
was the fourth son of Edward III. and possessed 
the qualities of his race. He is supposed to have 
aimed to succeed his father on the throne, in 
contempt of the rights of his nephew, son of 
his illustrious brother the Black prince; but the 
boy had not yet displayed the unworthy traits 
which finally cost him his crown; and the 
memory of his father proved sufficient to 
guarantee the succession of one of England's 
weakest sovereigns. 

Finding the English throne impracticable, John 
attempted that of Castile, but here he met a rival 
whose claim was but little more valid than his, 
but who had got the start of him. Later the 
progeny of John of Gaunt and of Henry of Tras- 
tamara intermarried; and the present Houses of 
Hapsburg and Bourbon are descended from both 
of these adventurers. 

Foiled in Castile duke John returned to Eng- 
land and plunged into poHtics. What the con- 
tention was between him and William of Wyke- 
ham, is not clear. It is probable that duke 
John was out of money, and remembering him 
14 



2 lo HISTORIC B UBBLES 

of the manner in which his great-grandfather 
Pl)iHp had replenished his coffers, he was try- 
ing to defraud the Church, and that the chancellor 
frustrated those designs. Wiclif who was of the 
opinion of Agur, with a leaning towards poverty, 
considered the wealth of the Church as one of 
its abuses, and he sided with the duke. He did 
not serve an ingrate, for when at length he was 
arraigned before the bishop of London to ex- 
plain his opinions, he walked into court accom- 
panied by John of Gaunt on one side, and John's 
friend Percy earl marshal of England on the 
other. Wiclif was feeble in body, and lord Percy 
told him to sit down. Not with my permission, 
said the bishop. Then without it, growled 
John of Gaunt, and he added that if the bishop 
put on airs he would drag him from his seat by 
the hair of his head. The session broke up in 
disorder; and one of the many inexplicable cir- 
cumstances connected with Wiclifs history, is 
that the populace who took the part of the 
bishop, vented their discontent not on Wiclif 
but on his lordly abettors. 

Later, duke John abandoned Wiclif but not 
wantonly or without an effort to fetch him round 
to what he regarded a common sense view of the 
case. Politics had shifted, and the duke was on 
the side of the Church. He suggested to WicHf 
that it was time for him to turn his coat also, and 



JOHN WICLIF 211 

finding him obstinate he left him to his own 
devices for a pragmatical disturber of the public 
peace. It was inconceivable to John of Gaunt 
that a man of genius could be in earnest about 
what he considered as nothing more than the 
futilities of the schools. 

Wiclif's greatest work was his translation of 
the scriptures into English; but his version was 
not one that we would accept to-day for our 
guidance. It was the translation of the transla- 
tion of a translation. Let us look a little into its 
pedigree: Some years before the birth of Christ, 
the old testament was translated into Greek. 
This version is called the Septuagint, because, 
according to the legend, seventy-two learned 
doctors were shut up in seventy-two separate 
cells and set to making seventy-two separate 
translations of the Hebrew scriptures. They 
accomphshed the task in seventy-two days, and 
when they came to compare notes their seventy- 
two versions all agreed word for word letter for 
letter. There could be no doubt of the inspira- 
tion of a work so miraculous; and such was the 
authority of the Septuagint that the citations of 
the old testament in the new, are taken from it. 
The Church of Rome at an early day translated 
the Septuagint and the Apocrypha into its 
adopted tongue the latin, and this version is 
known as the old Vulgate. In the course of 



2 1 2 HISTORIC B UBBLES 

ages, and they were dark ages, by careless trans- 
cription and by the foisting in of strange theo- 
logical ideas, the Vulgate had become corrupt, 
and such was its condition when Wiclif trans- 
lated it. Two hundred years later the Council 
of Trent revised it and brought it into its present 
form. It is now the ultimate Bible of the Church 
Catholic Apostolic and Roman, from which 
there is no appeal: the original Hebrew and 
Greek go for nothing when they differ from it. 
Do you ask why? I answer that the Church is 
inspired as well as the Bible, and inspiration for 
inspiration, the later must supercede the earlier. 
You protestants have merely gone back and 
picked up the exhausted material of the Church, 
and made out of it a sort of Bible of your own, 
instead of accepting the better provision she 
offers you; and it distresses me to add that the 
Council of Trent has consigned you all to per- 
diton for rejecting the Apocrypha. 

Scripture in Wiclif's day was a new revelation 
for the people, and the reading of his Bible was 
eagerly listened to; but some enthusiastic writers 
dilate upon its wide spread circulation, forgetting 
that the art of printing was then unknown, and 
that every copy was in manuscript, and that too 
not in the facile running hand of the present 
era, but in Ma,,k-Ietier printed out, so to speak, 
with the pen. Le Bas estimates that a New 



JOHN WICLIF 213 

Testament alone cost the equivalent of thirty 
pounds sterling money of his day which was early 
in this century — say two hundred dollars of our 
time, at which rate the whole Bible would cost 
say one thousand dollars. There were but few 
persons in the fourteenth century who could 
buy such books and but few who could read 
them. 

The style of Wiclif's Bible is simpler and clearer 
than the rest of his English. Green says that 
Wiclif's style is a model, and that he was the 
father of our modern vernacular; but this is dis- 
posed of by better authority. Sharon Turner 
says that Wiclif's style was inferior to that of 
some of his cotemporaries. Vaughn* whose 
biography of Wiclif is an almost continuous 
panegyric, says his style is repulsive and unin- 
telligible. Le Bas says it is barbarous. Knight's 
history says it is so obscure as to defy interpre- 
tation. The truth is, Wiclif like many another 
man of genius, had not the minor gift of phrase- 
making; and the better English of his Bible 
was owing to his collaborators who possessed 
that gift. Wiclif with the rest of his knowledge, 

* Green cites Vaughn for his authority. The recur- 
rence of such cases justifies E. A. Freeman in saying 
that Green was not in the habit of reading the authors 
he quotes; and that he should be judged rather by hi^ 
essays than by his histories. 



214 HISTORIC B UBBLES 

had self-knowledge : he knew his own defects and 
how to obviate them. 

As for his opinions they were fluctuating; and 
dififerent writers give different accounts of them. 
His eulogists say they were progressive; his 
enemies that he recanted. Hume says he had 
not the spirit of a martyr, and was ready to ex- 
plain away his doctrines whenever they put him 
in danger; but it is probable that such was the 
unpopularity of the French hierarchy that he 
ran no risk of martyrdom. He was not only 
left undisturbed in his cure of Lutterworth, but 
in spite of his opinions he was made one of the 
royal chaplains at the accession of Richard II. 

We find him at one time appealing to the pope 
against the archbishop of Canterbury; at another, 
calling his Holiness a purse-kcrver that is a 
pick pocket. Some of his expressions seem to 
call in doubt the existence of purgatory; but he 
upholds masses for the dead. He adheres to the 
seven sacraments, but he not only condemns the 
restrictions of the Church on the marriage of 
relatives, he approves of that connection between 
those more nearily allied in blood than is now 
sanctioned by modern legislation. He was no 
doubt betrayed at times by the sharpness of his 
own dialectics. His was the logic of the schools, 
the logic of the nominalists and the realists, of 
'Abelard, Aquinus and Dun Scotus, a logic by 



JOHN W I CLIP 215 

which anything might be proved or disproved 
at choice. 

The most important and most difficult question 
is what where his opinions of the Eucharist. It 
is commonly said that he denied Transubstantia- 
tion. But how far did he deny it? 

The term transubstantiation was not known 
till the twelfth century. For eleven hundred 
years, Christian theology had subsisted without it; 
and when it came, it came as all words come — the 
product of evolution. It is not known at what time 
the idea was first formulated that when Christ 
said this is my body; this is the blood of the 
new testament^ he taught that there was no 
longer any distinction of entity or identity be- 
tween himself and the bread and wine he 
held in his hand — that he was they, and they 
were he. This dogma, shadowy at first, grew 
more and more palpable till it developed into a 
word to express itself. But the theologians still 
imagined a difference. Did Christ on that occa- 
sion annihilate the bread and the wine, and sub- 
stitute for them himself so utterly that the 
physical qualities of bread and wine still appar- 
ent to the senses, were a delusion? If he did, 
it was unqualified or major transubstantiation; 
if he did not, it was qualified or minor transub- 
stantiation which after a time took the name of 
Consubstsintiation, The latter was the creed of 



2 1 6 HIS TORIC B UBBLES 

Wiclif. He admitted the Real presence; he de- 
clared that the bread after consecration, was the 
very body that hung upon the cross; but he held 
that the inner soinetidtigness of bread, as he 
expressed it, still remained. Thus far and no 
farther did he deny transubstantiation. Arch- 
bishop Trench says Wiclif escaped one danger 
only to fall into another equally great. The 
distinction between the two was a mere logo- 
machy which had no practical effect on his con- 
duct. He cleaved to the Mass; and it was at 
the celebration of that rite in his own church at 
Lutterworth that he received his death shock. 

Can the Mass exist without transubstantiation 
major or minor? Let us see. The Mass is not a 
mere church service, it is a sacrifice, a renewal 
of the Atonement, a rehearsal of Calvary. The 
consecrated Bread is the body and blood which 
suffered crucifixion; it is the Host, the victim. 
The priest raises it on high, and the people fall 
and worship it; Wiclif worshipped it. Is this 
idolatry? Not if God himself Hes on that silver 
paten. 

Had Wiclif been born sixty years later, we 
never should have heard of him: such a career 
as his would have been impossible. The House 
of Lancaster had then usurped the throne, and 
sought to strengthen its claim by subservience 
to the see of Rome. I say Rome in italics be- 



JOHN WICLIF 217 

cause the Captivity had lapsed into the Great 
Schism — a pope at Rome and a pope at Avig- 
non — England was of the obedience of the 
former, France of the latter. The odium theo- 
logicumwas reenforced by the odium politicum; 
and while any English priest might vent one 
or both, with impunity and applause, upon his 
Holiness at Avignon, he would risk his life if 
he tried it upon his rival Holiness at Rome. 



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